[Reader-list] Cursive being phased out of U.S. schools

[Chintan Girish Modi]

From
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/07/cursive-finally-being-phased-out-of-u-s-schools/
Cursive being phased out of U.S. schoolsJul 7, 2011 – 8:04 PM ET |

By Laura Baziuk

Forget the looping Ls and curving Gs.

Students in Indiana’s public schools will no longer have to learn cursive
writing starting this fall.

The state is one among 48 others transitioning to new state-led national
learning guides, the Common Core State Standard Initiatives, which no longer
require children to learn handwriting. They do, however, have to sharpen
their typing skills.

An Indiana Department of Education memo last spring said teachers can still
choose to teach cursive writing, or can stop altogether.

“State standards themselves, they’re just supposed to be a guide for what
students must know before moving on to the next grade,” said department
spokeswoman Stephanie Sample. “And there are lots of little details that
aren’t in those standards that kids learn.”

Sample said she has not heard any feedback from parents who are concerned
their children will no longer learn a basic, yet fading, skill.

How often does one write in cursive every day? Much of our daily personal
and business correspondence is done by a quick e-mail or text message.
Note-taking and composing essays or statements are done almost entirely on
the computer.

Indiana father Mark Shoup said he wouldn’t be concerned if his children,
though now grown, had not learned cursive.

“There are much more important skills I think they take into this century
than whether or not they write cursively,” the former teacher said, listing
critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork and literacy.

“Maybe it’s something we should not give up on, but keep it in perspective
of its relative importance in the scheme of things,” Shoup said. “How long
we really have children in school and what are our real goals for them?”

Perry Klein, a professor of literacy education at the University of Western
Ontario, said a child’s ability to compose depends on whether she can form
letters clearly and accurately.

“If students can form letters fluently, then that frees up their attention
to focus on the content and language of what they’re writing,” Klein said.

Research has yet to be published, he said, on whether forming those letters
works best on a page with a pen or on a computer screen. But as long as they
can read what they compose, they will develop the right skills.

“The important thing is that for kids to learn [printing)]and cursive
accurately and fluently, and if they have that, then they’ll be able to do
written composition in a whole variety of situations,” Klein said.

Marie Picard, a penmanship workbook dealer in London, Ont., said cursive
might be fading away, but still exists in letters, envelopes, signatures and
signs.

“Handwriting shows some sort of style and flair and how you are as a
person,” she said. “I just think that it’s (becoming) a lost art.”

Sonja Semion, with the Colorado branch of Stand for Children, an education
advocacy organization, said with limited resources in classrooms, it’s time
to focus not on what has always been taught, but what’s best for children
for when they become adults.

“I think schools have to toe a line right now where they have to really
prepare kids for the careers of the future,” she said. “We still need
writing, some kind of penmanship, but I think the keyboard is really the way
it’s going to go. The technology is the future.”

*Postmedia News*