By Bill Pytlovany
Typically changes to primary education in our country are slow to proceed. To my surprise there’s a push to remove cursive writing from school curriculum and it’s gaining momentum. I’m shocked at the support from even older long time educators.
It turns in New York State our English Language Arts curriculum only requires legible manuscript either print or cursive. I’m don’t have background in education but I do know what kids will need to know to be successful.
I’ve never been a fan of the current D’Nealian cursive or its predecessors.
Teaching me in 1st grade that a capital Q was written like a number two was the first time I started to question the intelligence of my teachers. I have never seen anyone write the letter Q like that so it didn’t make sense.
My recommendation would still require penmanship but instead of cursive teach the topic of “script”. What young minds needs to know is that there are a variety of “fonts” that can be use to express feelings beyond just words.
This post is excerpted with Bill’s permission from his blog
