A great discussion incurred on facebook with a good friend of me about the the issue of teaching cursive writing or computer keyboarding skills. What is more important? Many people felt computer keyboarding skills were more important, because cursive writing is becoming obsolete. They wondered why we even bothered to teach cursive in schools and we should focused on teaching keyboarding instead. I don't think so.
I feel that we need to find a delicate balance between both, but to not teach it would be a huge mistake. Students need to be able to read cursive writing to survive in this world. Not everything is written in print (look how many cool fonts we have in Microsoft word). Research shows that there is a strong correlation between good handwriting and good readers/writers. I see this correlation in my own students. Most of my low readers have poor handwriting, I decipher student work daily. Also, many of my students can't use the computer (even after having keyboarding), because they can't read the print (in any font) on the computer. Reading and writing are so connected, we need to have them work together.
3 comments:
hear hear!! I'm not a huge fan of cursive writing, but it is an important art that should not be lost. Handwriting is not really required in any situations today in business, so it seems destined to become a less focused on skill.
Amen!
I regret not focusing more on my cursive way back when. I think my cursive still looks like that of a third-grader, but I've taken to working on it now rather than not at all.
Kailyn loved learning how to write in cursive. I think it uses a more creative side of the brain.
We are going to work on keyboarding as well but I am glad she has the cursive.
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