Judy,
I'm afraid your tech director may be correct. I'm not in elementary,
but my library includes elementary materials. Recently, while looking into
replacing some old handwriting textbooks, I did a little research, and it
seems that the prevailing attitude is that handwriting instruction is an
outdated concept due to the use of computers. A study of handwriting on the
written essay of the SAT revealed that only 15% of students wrote in
cursive.
I queried a local school district, and I was told that both printing
and cursive are still taught in the early grades, but instruction time for
handwriting has been curtailed due to the time needed for reading and math
instruction. Also, the emphasis is shifting from penmenship to asking: what
is the best vehicle for students to respond to what they have read?
It's interesting -- it wasn’t that long ago that a person’s
intelligence and education were judged by the quality of one’s handwriting.
For example, Princess Diana was admitted to her secondary school on the
basis of her penmanship. Eventually, maybe the only people who will be able
to read cursive will be university scholars specializing in the subject.:-)
Andrea Kulick, M.S. Ed., M.S.I.S.
Curriculum Library
Marywood University
Scranton, PA 18509
akulick@marywood.edu
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:57 AM, Brown, Judy <jbrown@caldwell.k12.oh.us>wrote:
> Our tech director and I were discussing 21st century skills. The
> discussion moved to keyboarding skills. His theory is that leanring how to
> type is more important to today's students than learning how to write in
> cursive.
>
> My question is two-fold.
>
> 1. Does your school teach keyboarding and, if so, at what grade do you
> begin?
>
> 2. Is crusive writing going to become obsolete?
>
> Judy Brown
> K-12 Librarian
> Caldwell Schools
> Caldwell, OH 43724
> jbrown@caldwell.k12.oh.us
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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>
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