Cursive Script – Debate, Post
Cursive Script – Debate
Cursive Script – Debate, yes the debate is in earnest. Writing in script is considered a waste of teaching time in some education circles. Associate Professor Dr Misty Adoniou said in early 2015 in The Conversation, available on line
“The research doesn’t find any benefits for cursive writing.”
https://theconversation.com/profiles/misty-adoniou-107235
She added the following, “Cursive writing is cute, and nice, and decorative if you’ve got a leaning towards wanting to do it… just like you might like to learn to crochet or knit.”
Dr Adoniou’s statement that “research doesn’t find any benefits for cursive writing” means what?
- That there are no benefits compared with hand-printing?
- No benefits compared with tapping into a keyboard?
- Does she mean that we should teach printing and continue to print? Just skip the handwriting altogether?
Her message is unclear. Further, Dr Adoniou uses emotive metaphors to assert a viewpoint that writing in script is old-fashioned and irrelevant in the modern world. Such a broad and sweeping claim!
The trend in thinking that handwriting is outdated is a failure to grasp the basis of what literacy is. More importantly, it is a failure to grasp the significance of writing for intellectual development.
And….Dr Therese Keane of Swinburne University was quoted in the same article in The Conversation.
“Parents … [are concerned] that their sons or daughters may not have the right training to sit there and write clearly and accurately, and also under time pressure. And so the parents are quite concerned that their kids are going to be disadvantaged because they can’t write in those conditions, because … they’re used to typing.”
Neither concerned parents nor the academics are fully aware of the problems of constant keyboarding. To add to this, these young people cannot touch-type anyway.
Reacting to parental anxiety solves nothing. It seems that Dr Keane is responding to parental anxiety that has not been thought through. If most students are used to typing, then their handwriting skills must be on a par with keyboarding. No child is disadvantaged. It is simply one of a pretty long list of parental concerns. This particular anxiety is about their children getting an edge over other ‘competitors’ on the home run in Year 12 exams.
Dr Adoniou points out that NAPLAN tests are going online and that this will “level the playing field”. Moving online is a logical step and is neither here nor there when it comes to teaching handwriting. What she is saying is that those students whose handwriting is un-exercised can now compete better with that competitive edge!
The number of children referred to occupational therapists to strengthen their hands must be due to a twenty-first century physical weakness. Children who complain that their hand aches haven’t been doing enough writing.
So what are these academics really taking issue with? Dr Nicola Yelland, Professor of Education at Victoria University, writes,
“…spending school time on learning cursive, via careful copying of the letters and patterns… So when we teach kids particular downstrokes and where to start their letters, it’s really based on how you had to use the technology of a fountain pen and ink.”
This is exactly what learning to write means for children – copying letters and patterns. They actually enjoy it. Copying and practising is what learning means in the lower years of school.
What happens in real classrooms… I have to wonder how long it is since Dr Yelland went into a classroom to observe the teaching of hand-writing.
Classroom design: In today’s classrooms there is no space to “model” handwriting. White boards have become very, very small. Most of them are partially covered in pieces of paper. Teachers find it hard to write carefully on a white-board. When teachers do write lists of words and other material it is not for the purpose of modelling letter formation.
Limited modelling of handwriting. I will explain in greater detail. Because teachers do not “show and write” as much, children often write their letters to get them to appear correct. Children know what a letter should look like when complete but often they have no idea about where to start, how to shape the letter in the right direction or how to finish it. And because there is limited or no modelling in the classroom, children have the practice books and are told to practise at home.
In other words, handwriting – even printing – is not being taught as earnestly as it was in the past. In the Whole Language classroom, hand-writing, like reading, was a skill that children were supposed to pick up without explicit instruction.
Hand printing uses more of the brain than keyboarding. Handwriting uses more of the brain than hand printing. It is an important intellectual activity for children. It strengthens their fine motor skills, co-ordination and creativity. Afterall, handwriting has a close affinity with art.
I discuss these issues in a post. Here is the link: https://www.tutoringprimary.com/hand-writing-important/
The problem is the way hand printing and handwriting are taught. These skills are critical to the entire concept of literacy and always were.
In the practice of teaching, ideas and theories tend to go full circle. The resurrection of phonics is a good example. The link between hand-writing and reading will be better understood. Then we will come full circle on handwriting.