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When Did Print Take Over Cursive?


andreasn

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When did printing take over cursive handwriting and why did it happen. I don't see a reason for it, cursive is just as easy to write when you get used to it, just as easy to read when you get used to it and looks a lot better.

 

and I don't believe it was because of computers, after all the had been printed books for a very long time.

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As children we are all taught to print first then later to write in cursive. It seems to be a trend of late that schools don't teach cursive anymore so the originally taught skill of printing would then begin to become dominate. In my case, I had a horrible cursive handwriting that could hardly be deciphered including by myself! When I went to university as an engineer, I had to fall back to a very formal printed handwriting for drafting and lab reports and got quite good at writing quickly that way. It helped my ability to read my own notes greatly and I'm sure aided me in graduating. For many years I stuck with what worked and printed most of what I wrote. When I found fountain pens, I also found that I could actually write in a decent cursive using a fountain pen. So cursive writing now dominates in my writing.

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In the seventies and eighties as class sizes increased in US public schools.

I remember two of my sixth grade teachers talking about it. They were grading papers and complaining how the. Both had a stack a foot thick to go through. One of them showed the other a page and said, "This kid prints. You know what? I'm not going to make him stop. I can read it and it doesn't strain my eyes."

 

But we (the students) were not taught proper penmanship at the primary level either, it had been removed from the curriculum by that point. I was never made to draw ovals until it became muscle memory.

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When did printing take over cursive handwriting and why did it happen.

 

Print never "took over" cursive.

Both coexisted all the time back to the Romans and old Egyptians. And all the time you can see that there are different forms of "cursive" - sometimes a quite formal cursive with lots of rules and strict forms and another everyday "running"/connected script. It's the same today. When you look closely, most people don't really print or do a real, formal block-lettering, but make up their own connected script, which looks more or less similar to printed script. But what you miss is the formal, canonical "cursive" which needs practice and practice and practice. Well, the more complicated and hectic life became the more we thought it was hardly worth it to dedicate time to such a task; plus: cursive/writing is always susceptible to fashion and changes of fashion and is a reflection of its time (you can make up your mind when these major shifts happened in your country (it's Finland, isn't it?); just a little hint: right now it has not happened everywhere, but is has happened over and over again in all ages and all places...)

 

Actually I prefer to receive a letter with block letters than a letter in cursive from a person who either didn't have enough time to practice or lacks the motor skills for neat writing or is just too lazy to write nicely. That chickenscratch is a discourtesy to the reader.

Greetings,

Michael

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As far as I am concerned, GOOD printing is always easier to read than good cursive.

The catch is it has to be GOOD printing, not a rushed distorted printing.

 

That quote in Allen's post is oh so true.

I was taught when studying for a license exam to PRINT CLEARLY, to make it easier for the graders to read my answers.

Having been a teaching assistant in college, I really understand that side of the issue, as I had to grade papers with REALLY BAD handwriting. It got so bad that, if the handwriting was BAD, I would give the paper a little extra effort to decypher, then if I could not find the answer, they got a 0 for that question. I gave up trying to decypher their handwriting. I told the kids, "welcome to the real world."

 

The problem with cursive is that it can be so individualized or stylized, that it becomes difficult to read. I've seen beautiful writing, that I struggled to read.

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When did printing take over cursive handwriting and why did it happen. I don't see a reason for it, cursive is just as easy to write when you get used to it, just as easy to read when you get used to it and looks a lot better.

 

and I don't believe it was because of computers, after all the had been printed books for a very long time.

Here's the sense from an article I read about parents taking over a school district that was failing. The principal announced that second graders (those who learn cursive) were to do nothing but reading (language skills) and arithmetic. No PE, no art, no recess and NO CURSIVE. So they could bump up those all important test scores. So those little kids, especially boys, who can't sit still so young, were not only deprived of movement at regular intervals, but also of learning cursive when the muscles are trainable. Those kids will print like kindergarteners until they are ninety.

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The demise of cursive in this country was greatly exacerbated by the advent of high stakes testing that does not evaluate cursive handwriting. If it isn't in the state standards and it isn't assessed on the state tests it doesn't get taught. In Florida, that testing emphasis really caught on about 15 years ago. One in three of my ninth grade honors students can't read cursive. Our district just decided to require cursive instruction start again in third grade. We will see how it goes.

Dave Campbell
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Some day code talkers will be writing secret notes in cursive and puzzling code crackers everywhere. We oldsters will be able to fox the young dummies. I even have a typewriter still (and one in Russian Cyrillic, yet) so I can send messages WITHOUT A COMPUTER OR PRINTER. wooo.

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well here is an interesting story for you. all of you. As i have stated in other threads i am one of those that has some "learning differences" Basicly disgraphaia, and who knows what else, as i have had no testing since 1992. as part of this i spent some time in private schools. when i was in i think second grade i spent some time in the Cardin system after my parents moved me there from Montessori. I basically had to leave Cardin because it that age my fine motor skills made it hard for me to write in cursive. despite the work of multiple teachers and much of their time i am still having difficulty even today at 45. in the 7th grade my geography teacher "forced" us to lean block form capitol printing because it was faster for taking notes. he also graded our notes so partly i think he did this so it would be easer for him to scan our notes to grade them. then i toulk some technical drawing clases where block lettering was required. what is strange is beyond some work sheets i don't recall much real teaching (other than the special attention i got) in cursive and that was in the late 70's early 80' when i was in elementary school. I don't recall if printing or cursive was required in the writing proficiency exam that was required to graduate high school ( i somehow got a diploma despite never passing that one test.) but i do think as we have taken music and arts out of schools in order to teach to a test, thing like cursive go by the wayside.

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When I was twelve... so, for me, 1978.

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I suspect that there are lots of factors, and it's been a gradual process over a long period of time. My understanding is that once upon a time (a century or so ago), schools didn't even teach printing. Why they started probably has to do at least with experimental theories of education - and I would guess also with spreading bureaucracy. Nowadays, printing is still arguably a necessary life skill, since not everyone can yet fill out and submit every required form online. Cursive, on the other hand, is forbidden on most of those forms, so who needs it, right?

"To read without also writing is to sleep." - St. Jerome

 

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I was taught both ways in school but found I preferred printing until I got into the fountain pen habit. Part of me thinks it is the writing tools we use, I've never been able to write cursive very well in a ballpoint pen with the weak flow and resistance and most of the gel type pens available have extremely fine points which lend themselves better to printing small letters. In terms of legibility, I have to disagree a bit. Cursive is perfectly legible if it is properly learned but all of the loops and stems can make some cursive almost completely illegible. Even the weakest printers handwriting is usually somewhat legible because of the spacing between each letter and the defined shapes of printed letters. This is not to say I wouldn't rather see all kids practicing perfect cursive but printing has its advantages for some folk (including me before finding the joy of a fountain pen).

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If a pen was used only to fill out forms, yes, we wouldn't need cursive. In fact, we don't NEED cursive at all. Many of us, however, find it a skill well worth persuing. Every time I fill out a form while sitting in an uncomfortable chair in an office and get the comment "Wow! What lovely handwriting!" ... Well, that is a large part of why I do it.

 

Enjoy,

Yours,
Randal

From a person's actions, we may infer attitudes, beliefs, --- and values. We do not know these characteristics outright. The human dichotomies of trust and distrust, honor and duplicity, love and hate --- all depend on internal states we cannot directly experience. Isn't this what adds zest to our life?

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I should perhaps have made it clearer that the final sentence in my previous post does not express my own opinion! It should have a "snark" or "sarcasm" alert on it. I am personally growing more convinced every year of the importance of learning handwriting, and wish I'd spent more time making sure my own children learned it properly.

"To read without also writing is to sleep." - St. Jerome

 

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Printing will never replace cursive for me. Learning to write in cursive was a rite of passage when I was growing up. In first and second grade, you had to print. In third grade, you learned cursive. I wanted to get a head start, so during the summer between second and third grade, I taught myself cursive. My grandmother wrote out the cursive alphabet at the top of a letter tablet, and I practiced - which is probably why my handwriting has some elements of the Palmer she learned in the mid twenties mixed in with the Zaner-Bloser being taught to children in the mid sixties. Of course, the biggest deal was when you reached sixth grade and were finally allowed to write with a pen. (I wish I could say fountain pen, but most of the students used the Bic Cristal Stick Pens in blue or black.)

"Don't be humble, you're not that great." Golda Meir

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Like PAKMAN I learned a formal printing style in engineering drafting classes in college, then used that style for a number of years at work until computerized drafting tools became available. By then I was so used to that style that I just kept using it.

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I spent more than 30 years block printing. First as an amateur radio operator, then in a fortune 500 engineering company where we were required to keep Engineering logbooks and write only in black ink and only print.....

 

Still, I never gave up cursive totally, but it sure did look putrid for a while!

 

-Bruce

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For me, it was having to study for a high school class (civics, I think) i the mid 60's.

The class notes were written out on the blackboard, so we were required to copy them in our notebooks. Which I did quickly in my native handwriting.

 

When it came time for the end of class testing, my notes (handwriting) were completely undecipherable!

 

I can not say my handwriting was ever good at all, but written quickly, becomes exponentially unreadable. (In my native language "bird scratches")

 

Since then for class notes I used a printing font, with which I found myself pretty quick, and quite readable.

 

Since then, though, for meeting or lecture notes I use a relatively careful cursive or cursive italic, with well formed letters, as I record the important concepts, rather than detailed notes.

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In a few of the public schools in Texas (Brazos County), children are taught cursive in fourth grade. I am not sure how far they take it and whether kids end up writing cursive as their personal choice later on.

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