tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13639729.post112533525212950011..comments2023-10-28T01:00:37.752-07:00Comments on teXta: CursiveChrista M. Forsterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970033224178963081noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13639729.post-13151833223395830172009-03-16T09:29:00.000-07:002009-03-16T09:29:00.000-07:00I am an occupational therapist working with presch...I am an occupational therapist working with preschool to post-highschool students. Children in the U.S. are being short changed in the neglect of handwriting. Handwriting is a valuable cultural endeavor for much more than aesthetic reasons alone. My take on handwriting is this - requiring kindergarteners to write is silly; at least a third of them don't have the fine motor or attentional skills to do so with good form, and many of them develop very bad habits that are carried over throughout their life. The idea of teaching cursive prior to print may have merit. Print and cursive are crucial parts of any school's curriculum because of this: It provides a micro gymnasium for the body and mind. Even though writing a letter occurs in a very small space, it requires a complex integration of movement, pressure, and visual processing. Angular, straight, and circular movements are all sequenced in a specific order to imitate fairly complex visual images and motoric movements. This activity provides an organizing foundation for the central nervous system that other skills can be integrated with. The visual spatial and coordinative skills that develop with a highly structured handwriting curriculum provide a neural structure for organizing other kinds of information and skills. Research shows that students perform higher in all subject areas when they participate in a fully developed handwriting curriculum. Unfortunately, curriculums across the U.S. are so crammed with peripheral content and schools spend so much time doing and teaching things that families should be responsible for, many gradeschools do not have formal handwriting curriculums. The idea that handwriting is no longer necessary because of technology is incorrect. When I look at my parent's handwriting and then my grandparent's handwriting I can see the unfortunate cultural decline from a time when people took pride in their handwriting, and took the time to make it a beautiful thing. Maybe somehow this idea can be ushered back into modern society, but right now I don't see that happening.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16627090026051589261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13639729.post-11978385974103974422008-09-18T17:18:00.000-07:002008-09-18T17:18:00.000-07:00As a handwriting instruction/remediation specialis...As a handwriting instruction/remediation specialist (who has serious bones to pick with printing AND with cursive), I'd like to put my two cents in.<BR/><BR/>Research shows that the fastest, clearest handwriters avoid cursive. Highest-speed highest-legibility handwriters join some, not all, of the letters -- making just the easiest joins, and skipping the rest -- and use print-like rather than cursive-style forms for those letters that "disagree" between printing and cursive.<BR/><BR/>Since learning to read cursive takes an hour or less (I've taught five-year-olds to do it), and learning to write cursive takes a year or more, I do recommend that students learn how to read cursive for the sake of those who still write in cursive. But why require students to write in a style that the fastest and clearest handwriters avoid?<BR/><BR/><BR/>Kate Gladstone<BR/>handwriting instruction and remediation specialist<BR/>Founder, Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works <BR/>Director, the World Handwriting Contest<BR/>http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.comKateGladstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07062492442607584456noreply@blogger.com