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Hi this is Betsy from Classroom Teacher Resources and today I'm gonna share my feelings about teaching cursive handwriting.
So today I wanted to share a little bit about my thinking around teaching cursive handwriting.
It seems to be quite the controversy right now.
I gotta be honest with you, I'm pretty torn about this topic and I'll tell you why.
First of all y'know I teach 4th grade and 4th grade is quite the conceptual leap from 3rd to 4th grade in what needs to be covered and the assessments students have to take
and I can tell you to teach cursive writing effectively it takes a lot of time and I'm not sure I have the time to do that.
I also go through this thought process about these students' futures.
How much are they going to be using cursive as an adult?
Well I can tell you most adults sign their names in cursive and beyond that it's kind of a mish mash of print and cursive handwriting.
I can tell you that neither one of my sons who are adults now use cursive at all beyond their names.
We live in a technological age too where I honestly would prefer that students could keyboard efficiently and effectively more than be able to write in cursive.
Is cursive important? Perhaps.
I can tell you my own Mom thinks I should be teaching cursive handwriting and her thinking is
if students don't know cursive they won't be able to read the original Declaration of Independence and she thinks that's important.
So I gotta say it's a valid point but again that's a lot of time.
So I do write in cursive on my white board, it isn't perfect cursive by any means
but the daily schedule on my white board I will alternate often between cursive and print so at least my students are learning to read cursive.
I also require that my students learn to write their own name in cursive and on every paper they turn in their name has to be in cursive in the top right.
I do help students with that, I give them practice, I show them models for cursive handwriting
and for some students who have issues with fine motor skills we work a little bit harder on that making sure they can write their first, middle and last name in cursive and kids think that's kind of fun.
I treat them like movie stars sometimes and I ask them for their autograph and they're more than happy to practice writing that in cursive for me.
So, let me give you a quick example of what my daily schedule would look like written in cursive on the board.
Alright, daily schedule, here we go.
Alright, so you can see here what is an example of the daily schedule that I post in my classroom and it's mostly written in cursive.
But this is real handwriting that students should be able to read
and it also shows a student exactly not only the content area but what we're going to be studying.
In reading I write down that they're going to need their note books.
So, this is real world use of cursive so students while they may not be able to write this way at least they're going to be able to read that way.
So, you can see that while I kind of use cursive I don't spend a lot of time teaching it other than helping students write their own name.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about this handwriting controversy because I'm not sure which way to go so maybe you can guide me on this one.
So by all means you can contact me at Classroom Teacher Resources. Just hit that contact me link on my home page.
and share your thoughts I'd love to hear it.