I can hardly believe what schools are doing now!

In all honesty, cursive writing is NOT that important in the real world. Sure, you need to write your signature but that's about it. You don't need to write cursive in everything you do. Teachers, especially teachers of young children don't need to write cursive and in fact, if they did, their children would be extremely confused about what was being said. I think it's important they learn how to write cursive passed their signature but I don't think it's important for it to be constantly pushed. Once you're out of school, it doesn't really matter anymore.

I graduated high school in 2003, and I can tell you by my experience, public schools are a joke. I was a straight 'A' student until 10th grade, when I realized I could slack my way through without doing half of the work. I was a kid, so I took advantage of this. I had people in my senior English class who couldn't read at a 6th grade level. Several of my peers had inelligible hand writing. Most of the people in my classes had a hard time reading period, having to sound out each individual word carefully to get through a paragraph. I must admit, it was pretty pathetic. Personally, I always strived to learn more than what the school system taught me by teaching myself. Public schools are an embarrasment, and for a country that's so supposed to be one of the world's leading powers, our illiteracy rate is humiliating. I will argue the point though, that many video games have been attributed to better hand-eye coordination and problem solving skills. However that isn't a replacement for the basic academic fundamentals.

I agree with you infact this happened to me but in a totally different way. My son had to learn the capital and small letters in print writing first then we had to move so we changed schools and then he had to learn cursive but after two years yet again we moved and in that school again he had to relearn to write in print letters.Cursive made you loose marks. It really played havoc with his hand writing and I had to go and fight with his teaher to let him write the way he writes and if she wanted cut his marks , I didn't care but the damage had been done already. My hubby's job is such that we finally moved from this school and now again poor thing is learning to write in cursive. He is in fourth grade now, I just wonder if its already too late. Your case seems mutch worst then mine though.

Wow! I can't believe that you said this because my 17 year old son told me the other day that he does not know how to write in cursive! I cannot believe that! He said they showed him in 4th grade for a few weeks and that was it. He said that he has printed everything else since. Of course, with computers nowadays kids type and print out their reports with Microsoft Word so they never have to write out a report in cursive anymore like we had to. Also, whenever I see his schoolwork or homework it is also always printed instead of hand written. He told me the other day that he does not know his cursive alphabet. Can you believe that? He is almost an adult and I am going to have to teach him his cursive alphabet myself because the school has failed to do this. I remember that when I was a child in school the classrooms had the alphabet written in cursive letters and printed and they were above the blackboards. I just am in utter dismay at this. It is astonishing! Have a nice day and happy myLotting!!!

That's absurd! What's next, not learning how to add 2+2 since we have calculators and computers that can do it for us? If I still had kids in school and found they weren't doing this, I'd be talking to the school board or higher.

I can clearly remember learning cursive writing when I was in the 3rd grade. Now, my daughter is in the same grade and they haven't taught her yet. I asked her teacher why she hasn't been taught, and come to find out, now they don't teach them until the 4th grade. So every now and then, my daughter and I will practice her cursive. It is important for the kids to learn cursive. Every thing in the world isn't just based on print, You have things in cursive, and in which you need to write in cursive, and you have print. And they have to know the difference.

That's unbelievable! I hope that schools across the country are not going to stop teaching cursive writing. That is just sad, really! Cursive writing is an art. There is just no excuse at all for not teaching cursive writing! You know, it's always said that the new generation is smarter, but I have never agreed with that. I have seen so many children deprived of so many different things that I learned in school. I realize that they are learning to use computers and we didn't, but that is no excuse for not teaching them what they need to know. My daughter is 35 and she is always commenting that she would have been completely stupid if her grandmother and I hadn't taught her most things. Sadly, I think that is true. You know, there is no such thing as learning too much. I remember learning semiphore and Morse Code. I never used it (except for playing), but at least I know what they are! Why don't you get some other parents (or grandparents or anyone you can) together and go to the schoolboard? Or write a letter to your local newspapers? It might help.

My son is 8 years old and he learned how to write in cursive in school last year. They had months of handwriting homework. It must just be some schools.

The schools here still teach cursive you start learning how to write cursive in the 4th grade. My son has really nice cursive handwriting. I wonder whey the shcools where you live don't teach cursive that is strange.

i can barely write cursive myself... my teachers never taught it to me but i tried to teach it to myself... i wasn't very good lol but i know some letters. i can't read it all that good either though in less its written nicely.. i think it should be taught still. i print everything but still, what if you need to know to write in cursive and something other then your name. because my name is the only thing i'm good at writing lol but it is not shocking to be honest... school have gotten worse and better in different ways.

I was learning to write in cursive back in the third grade. I am twice your nephews age and I feel for you. My son is learning how to write his name. He prints everything too and he's in 5th grade. The schools these days are so about advanced math, and computer techs that they don't show our kids the things that we learned. There aren't enough periods in a school day to show them how to write properly?? COme on! I learned how to type when I was in high school only after I was tested properly for knowlege in everything else. We weren't allowed to have extra curriculars back then unless we knew the basics. I feel for our kids now. I believe that because everyone is sliding on the "OLD WAYS" of doing things and that is why we have drop outs, kids graduating without being able to even read, teenage pregnancies and the list goes on and on. Hope you can get him to write, Love. This is a sad world. I once heard that idle hands are the devils handiwork. I believe that now. Our kids will be out to kill eachother, and doing bad things if we don't teach them HOW TO WRITE now. GOod luck!!

Where I live, it is exactly the opposite! Children do not learn how to print before they learn to do 'joined up' writing, they learn beautiful manuscript immediately. My poor son, who had learnt to read and write before we came here, although he printed, had to go back to writing pages and pages of handwriting exercises. All my neighbours have beautiful handwriting though, so I suppose it pays off. I can't help but feel there's too much emphasis on it though. In these days of computers, handwriting is less important. I don't feel we should go as far as you've just described Dragon54u, where children don't learn proper handwriting at all, but there must be a happy middle ground. When I was at school in england we learnt how to print, then we moved onto joining the letters up. It seemed to work very well. Although my handwriting is pretty grim these days, that's primarily through lack of use (typing doesn't exercise the handwriting muscles!) and the fact that my brain always works so much faster than my hand can!

I have exactly the opposite problem! My son was taught cursive writing in K4 and they never taught him printing!. He went to a different school and they were appalled that he didn't know how to print. My son is in grade 6 now and his printing is bigger than it should be. Next year he goes into grade 7 so I suppose they will get him back to cursive writing.

No every child should first learn his own capabilities and sharpen them...Learninh to depend on computers or any other gadgets at very young age can have many adverse effects...I agree completely with you..

I think that every child should learn how to write in cursive. Even if they have horrible handwriting like I do, it makes it easier for him or her to get a signature and to join the letters together. I do not know much about motor skills, I must have it naturally because my handwriting has never been that good and I sort of do both, write and print at the same time. It is also hard to write some letters like r for instance, and a, and so if a child can master these, it is quite good.

Modern Schools are good for business people not for our children to study.Teachers in the schools does not have a good educational qualifications,no experience in teaching field.The just do what their officials tell them.The worst thing they do is they give full marks even when our child makes mistakes.If they give good marks,then the parents will come and question them.One of my relatives had a same situation.Their kid was in 1st class,he doesn't even know some small spellings like DOG and all..But he gets very good marks in dictation. When I told my uncle about this they asked the teacher,then the teacher said that she received some orders that she should give very good marks to all the students.Again they say that we cannot concentrate on each and every student in the class,thats why some mistakes happen. Yeah I do agree that cursive writing improves a kids skills in presenting and all.But the school people should have the minimum sense that a kid should be used to write and read .No matter how the technology is developed.Once Kids are used to such things,then its very hard to make them learn after certain age.Now its print outs,Next it may be video's for classes and there will not be any writing in the exams too,because they make the students to tell what they know and they record in a disk or any other thing.Hope the education system get backs to the normal way it was before.

Hi,dragon, It is unbelievable!!I known the computer is all over the world,it is much more that learn to depand on computer,but,it is very important for children to learn cursive writing,that is basic skills for eaveryone!You should give some suggestion to the school,I support you 100% on this!Have a lovely day!

I have also read that some schools skip print and go straight to cursive. I don't know if that is true or not. My children's school teaches print and then cursive. It would not surprise me to know that some schools have stopped teaching cursive. With the No Child Left Behind Act, it seems that a lot of schools have changed their curriculum to focus on the things the children will need to know for the standardized tests that they must take. I am sure that there are things other than cursive that will no longer be taught to allow more time to prepare students for these tests.

In india, we are happy that we dont use Printing work at schools, here, students are supposed to write it down on their own, in teir personal notebooks which they refer for exams. using printing is good for students in PG colleges or for students in degree colleges.. not in school where student is in learning mode, it will make them less skillful and less informed in comparison to students who dont use printing, because when you write by your own, you read each and everything, but when you take printouts, you dont care to read that at that momenent, most student read at exam time, so whatever is not covered by him during exam, he wont be having any knowledge about that.

My daughter is currently in 7th grade and there are quite a few problems I have noticed about how they are teaching these days. As for the cursive, she actually was taught and still uses cursive on a daily basis, perhaps it has to do more with the actual school district. We live in Deer Park, TX, the schools are really good and ranked high among Texas school districts. What I don't like is that they teach around the TAKS test, I'm not positive about the national extent of this test so I will explain. It is a comprehensive test that is supposed to guage the childs progress and unfortunately at intermitent levels the childs progression into the next grade can be dependent on them passing. TAKS stands for "Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills", so obviously this particular test is confined to Texas but your state may have a similar program. The teachers are required to teach the test and not skills in general, so our children are great at taking a multiple choice question and figuring out which answer is probably the right one, especially in math, but they have very little grasp on the basic fundamentals. We had to spend over $4000 this year in tutoring just to get our daughter to the level in math that she could comprehend the new things she would be learning this year. They give very little personal attention when it comes to fundamentals and are only concerned with "can this kid pass the test". By the way, don't let me forget to mention that the teacher's bonuses are based almost solely on the percentage of their class that passes this test on a yearly base, even if it is not a mandatory test for that particular grade, which I believe it is in 5th, 7th and 12th, or something like that. I have had multiple discussion with friends, but I thought it would be great to get opinions of many more people and see how other states and communities are fairing when it comes to standardized tests.