Indiana education officials recently decided that the state's schools will no longer be required to teach penmanship to students. Instead of mastering the intricacies of cursive handwriting, children will focus their energies on learning to type.
Many other districts nationwide have already dropped handwriting instruction, sparking complaints from parents and grandparents that kids are losing an essential skill as schools rush into the digital future. Is learning cursive writing still an important skill? We recently asked visitors to the Grandparents.com Facebook page, and received some surprising answers:
Cursive writing is not a necessity. Students need to know how to read cursive, but the only time they must write it is to make a signature. Why stress them more than they need to be stressed? We already put so much pressure on them to perform on state tests. – Reta
Cursive certainly isn't necessary. Most people abuse it terribly and, as a result, their handwriting is not legible. As long as the kids are taught to print, that is all that is really necessary. – Kay
What a shame. I guess it will be a lost art one day, but handwriting is so personal and beautiful. It has personality. – Ana
Everyone needs to be able to write, cursive or otherwise. Because we have CDs and tapes, do we need to quit teaching people to read? – Sunny
What is wrong with the way we all learned, as they used to say, the 3 Rs? I just don't understand schools today. – Karen
Kids should learn everything they can in school. I learned how to handwrite in the third grade. It seems like grade-school teachers do not want to really work with kids like they used to in the 50s and 60s. They just want to push them through these days. –
Eileen
They need to learn it more than sports. – Sandy
They need to learn it for the simple reason that they need to be able to read cursive. – Karen
How are they supposed to read the documents that made this country great? This sounds to me like another way to dumb down America. – George
The school that I worked in dropped cursive a few years ago. Unless the students have computers in class,
they will not be able to take notes with any speed. I had to speak very slowly and stop after a sentence or two because of slow printers. –
Helen
The same thing happened here in Tennessee this past year. I think it's a shame. I just received a handwritten letter from my stepmother and it means the world to me that she took the time to sit and write. – Kathy
If that were the case here in Virginia when my children were coming up, I would have taught them cursive myself! – Karen
| Do kids still need to learn cursive? |
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Yes; it's an essential part of a good education 93.8%
No; handwriting is obsolete in the computer age 1.4%
I'm not sure; it's a useful skill, but there's so much else they need to learn 4.8%
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Children should still learn cursive,
for the sake of having a skill that all people can communicate with. I certainly appreciate a handwritten note of thanks or news from my children and grandchild. –
Ruth
I think we are all going to miss the personal touch of handwritten words. – Rene
There is nothing like re-reading old letters from the past. My mom's been gone for over 30 years now, but every now and then I will pull out one of her precious handwritten letters and read yet again what was on her mind and touch where the pen she held in her hand wrote those words. It's like having her just a little closer to me. – Joy
Nothing on the computer can compare to a handwritten note from a loved one, or a thank you card, or a young person's diary! – Janet
When did handwritten notes and letters become obsolete? It is a form of communication that will work if we don't have electricity and people can't keyboard… oh, my gosh, I think I just turned into my own grandmother! – Linda
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