[LM_NET] Cursive Handwriting

[Mary Ludwick <mludwick@IRVINGISD.NET>]

While this is not exactly a library issue, it is an education issue....
Here is an article from Newsweek that says we should get rid of cursive
writing.  I am posting as an FYI.

Penmanship, like hieroglyphics and the IBM Selectric, has lost its
purpose. Let's erase it for good.

........The folks who want to make us script conscripts have formulated
all sorts of rationalizations. Chief among them: education. Some studies
have shown a link between good handwriting and improved academic
performance. A recent one found that the majority of primary-school
teachers believe that students with fluent handwriting produce better
work, though it seems just as likely that the teachers might "believe"
that because legible handwriting makes their jobs easier. And you could
just as easily argue that cursive can be a disincentive to learning for
Q-phobic kids like me (though even I believe kids should still learn
block lettering). That was the case for Anne Trubek
<http://www.newsweek.com/related.aspx?subject=Anne+Trubek> 's 9-year-old
son, who struggled so much with penmanship that he now hates writing
altogether. "His school's policy is that you must learn cursive because
you need to learn how to write and read it," says Trubek, who is a
professor of English at Oberlin College. "I understand that you need to
know how to write, but I think cursive could really just go." Teachers
seem to think so, too. Penmanship was once taught for close to an hour
each day; it now warrants less than 15 minutes, according to a 2007
study. Keyboarding has replaced cursive as the priority in most schools,
and most kids don't use it when they have the chance: in 2006, just 15
percent of SAT takers used cursive on the written test............rest
of article at:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/184751

Mary Croix Ludwick, Librarian 
Thomas Haley Elementary K-5 
Irving ISD, Texas 
mludwick@irvingisd.net 
972-261-2500



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