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Cursive a puzzle for many young students

Melissa Nix • McClatchy Newspapers • January 2, 2009



SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — About five years ago, San Juan High School
teacher Shirley Bowers realized that half her students had no idea what
she was writing on the board.




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"I had a student remark that he couldn't read my notes," Bowers said.
His fellow classmates fessed up, too. Bauer's notes were hard to read.
They were in cursive.
 
Over the past decade, teachers and secondary students across the country
have reported a trend that their parents and grandparents could scarcely
imagine:
 
The millennial generation is increasingly cursive illiterate.
 
The digital age has pushed to the periphery a penmanship skill used for
generations. The world of personal computers, e-mail and texting has
rendered the handwritten note an anomaly, something that many of today's
students get only from grandparents. Some parents complain that their
middle schoolers can't sign their names.
 
Cursive - the long, flowing style of penmanship in which the letters are
connected - is taught to youngsters letter-by-letter in daily drills.
Teachers in California's Elk Grove, Folsom-Cordova, Sacramento City, San
Juan and Twin Rivers unified school districts report teaching it.
 
However, cursive instruction is not state-mandated, nor is cursive
fluency tested as a California standard. So emphasis on penmanship
varies from district to district and school to school.
 
Many students can't read it, and many more can't write it, either.
 
Despite its marginalization, cursive is still a state educational
standard in California. Kids should be able to legibly write in cursive
or joined italic lettering by the third and fourth grades, the state
says.
 
"I love teaching cursive, so it's hard to let it go, but with the
priorities of No Child Left Behind, it's almost being forced out," said
Elizabeth Wihtol, who teaches third grade at Twin Rivers Unified's
Pioneer Elementary School.
 
A few days ago, Wihtol wrote a lower case cursive "r" on an overhead
projector and showed her class how to make the letter.
 
The room was quiet. The children lowered their heads as they practiced.
One boy, a lefty, stuck his tongue out in concentration.
 
"It's fantastic how the words connect - it's so different in cursive,"
said Alyssa Dallman.
"Once you know how to write cursive, you know how to read it," said
Hunter Jurkovich. He could now decode the "secret" cursive notes his
older sister writes.
 
But while cursive fluency often makes elementary kids feel like
grown-ups, this rite of passage often loses its currency once kids hit
middle school, teachers say.
Middle and high school teachers receive word-processed assignments
uploaded to Web sites. Pupils mastering complex content may be more of a
priority than perfectly formed cursive script. Fluency dries up.
 
"Unless you use it, you lose it," said Susie Schaffer, a retired
third-grade and English Language Arts lead teacher at Folsom Cordova
Unified.
 
She thinks cursive needs to be emphasized beyond one or two years of
elementary school. "People are beginning to realize that children are
graduating with atrocious or illegible handwriting," she said.
 
Mark Bradley, an English and U.S. history teacher at Rio Tierra Junior
High, said it takes his students longer to read something in cursive
than when each letter is written separately - also known as block or
print. And he added that they groan when asked to write in cursive.
 
"It's a bit like going for a root canal for them," Bradley said.
 
On a recent impromptu writing exercise, in which time was an element, of
65 students, only one wrote in cursive. The rest of the essays were in
block, he said.
 
He then posed a question to his students: "If I paid you by the word to
write something in a hurry, would you use cursive?"
 
Of those same 65 students, only two said they would.
 
Bradley also said he's noticed that his fellow teachers - those about 10
years younger - tend to write in block letters.
 
"It's been a slow change over time, but accelerated by word processing
and texting," Bradley said.
 
Some cursive proponents say the problem is exacerbated by teacher
credentialing programs that no longer train potential teachers on
cursive instruction.
What will happen when the next generation of teachers arrives, some of
whom can no longer read nor write cursive?
 
Frances van Tassell, associate professor in the University of North
Texas department of teacher education and administration, said she fears
future teachers will no longer be able to teach cursive because they
will not have mastered it. As a sort of remedy, she emphasizes cursive
mastery and instruction in her program.
 
Van Tassell's emphasis is rare, according to a recent study by
Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham, noted in a November 2007
Newsweek article. He found that only 12 percent of the elementary
teachers he surveyed had taken a cursive instruction course.
So, is cursive fluency a 20th century cultural hang-up or a necessary
skill? That's up for debate.
 
"Who, when several generations have chosen the keyboard over cursive,
will be able to read handwritten love letters or historical documents?"
asked Dennis Williams, the national product manager for Zaner-Bloser, an
education publisher that produces a popular cursive instruction
curriculum.
 
Patrick O'Neill, assistant principal for academics at St. Francis High
School in Sacramento, said cursive is a necessary skill.
 
"If (our students) can't read or write cursive, there will be parts of
the world they will not be able to access," O'Neill said. "They have to
be able to access all the forms of communication available today."
 
According to the College Board, when the SAT added a handwritten essay
to its 2006 exam, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students
wrote their answers in cursive.
But those who did earned slightly higher scores.
 
Other studies show that learning cursive helps children's brain synapses
to develop because it requires fluid movement, eye-hand coordination and
fine motor skill development," said van Tassell. "It's like certain
kinds of music."
 
Bradley said that his students who prefer print may lose out on "time
efficiency" compared to their counterparts who choose cursive, but he
doesn't think cursive fluency is necessary anymore.
 
"In everyday life, most (students) don't come across cursive," he said.
"Even those who have a wide skill set tend not to have that one as part
of their repertoire."
 
Mira Loma High School senior Molli Carlson said she rarely encounters
cursive except when her grandmother sends her a card.
 
Classmate Haylie Casey agrees. "I see it on Christmas cards or birthday
cards," she said.
And how do they reply?
 
In print.

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