Saw a poster that read...

I noticed this early on - so one summer I planned to teach my daughter cursive writing. As she is an advanced drawer anyway, she picked up on it right away - it didn't even take an entire summer. The following year (3rd grade), the teacher was surprised she could already write cursive - and that was the year the kids would learn it in class. But after that, I don't know what happened - I didn't really see cursive being used in 4th - even now in 5th grade! However my daughter still uses it - particularly in her artwork. So whether the folks of the future use it or not, at least she's got that in her pocket!

I'm not a teacher, but heard about it a few years ago at my son's parent/teacher conference. I asked the teachers how are kids going to sign for a loan or mortgage and they said it is done electronically. In fact, a girl who went to school with my daughter bought her house without signing her name. At the time, only my son and one other student could read and write cursive (which he loves since he could write things about other students without them knowing what he wrote). In my opinion, it is another "dumbing down" America technique, after all like you said, the future generation can't read historical documents which means they will not know how to run this country and will more than likely repeat history without even knowing it.

With the computer age here and everything in print form cursive writing appears to be a thing of the past. I was told by someone who works for the post office to stop writing out in script the name and address not because many people write sloppy and its illegible but because many new younger workers were never taught how to read cursive writing. So I now print ALL envelopes.

Totally weird. I thought I had heard wrong but heard this a while back too. Don't understand it.

Yes, unfortunately in the last few years that have dropped cursive from our curriculum.

Your first argument is not very pertinent : handwriting has evolved during the centuries, and reading an old cursive from the 15th or 16th C is not easy at all for me, although I spent perhaps a decade of my life among archives. And when I need to read something older, I need to ask a professional to help me times to times when the handwriting is too difficult for me. The education evolves, and if a thing like cursive handwriting is no more taught, it is less important in my mind than to suppress or reduce the teaching of philosophy in high school like it is done in many countries today... Children are learning script, so they know how to write, but if they don't learn philosophy, they will lack some efficient tools to make a better use of their brain.

Some of the schools in the area still teach it, I believe. The thought by some people is that it is more important to teach more "academics", just like some schools are omitting art classes. However learning cursive causes better connections in the brain to help kids learn other things. My daughter is homeschooling and teaching her oldest cursive, after printing. Her second one is going to just be taught cursive, based on something she read in some of her studies about writing. Personally, children need to learn many ways of reading and writing in my opinion.

I have read discussions about teaching cursive handwriting, and I think it's good to teach kids. I read that learning cursive handwriting is good for brain development too. So, I am going to teach my kids cursive handwriting anyway, though it's not part of the curriculum here. Same goes to Roman Numerals, I think it's good to learn.

I was taught it, but decided in 11th grade I couldn't read my own writing, so went back to printing. I'm not too sure my 29 year old niece knows how....

I taught all of the kids cursive.... except the youngest two and that is more because of their disabilities not because I think it is pointless. I think cursive is beautiful. My middle will learn it a few years delayed because she will be able to do it I think. Her printing is very nice. The Boy may never learn it but he struggles just to put a mark on a paper some days. He is just, at 8, getting the letters of his name down. He knows them verbally but has no muscle tone in his hand so..... Anyway.... I would have them all know it if I could.

Cursive writing will soon be history. No one hand writes these days. Sad but true. One will never know how to judge one's character which used to be done by looking at their cursive writing!

We are heading towards that when we would be no longer be required to write. Looking at how things are shaping up - Use Less Paper - has been promoted world wide (for whatever reasons). We have technology to allow you to write - computers (for documents, emails, accounts etc), Handsets for chats, socializing, texting etc. So sooner or later we are going to be on those lines where we would not be required to write anything as our ancestors (or even a few of our next generations). And I am sure, there would be no need to read historic documents either - as of today, we already have a very small number of people who actually want to become historians or even read about history.

Didn't know that was happening but it's IGNORANT! What genius educator decided that it wasn't necessary to learn cursive writing??!! Just because digital clocks were invented kids were still taught how to tell time with the long hand and short hand on the clock! No wonder people are opting for homeschooling.

the school system figured children did not need to learn curvive hand writing anymore. they firued with compoters they did not need it. How are they going to sign documents.

Cursive writing is use to sign legal documents. As most legal documents won't be excepted without a cursive signature. Except if you can proof you can't read or write, you can sign a document with an"X". Cursive writing is needed.

I taught mine how to write in cursive after learning a while back they were talking about not teaching it. My daughter says they just barely went over it in class and yet they still require the students to use cursive to sign papers.

There are some schools that still teach it. In second grade the children were just starting to play with it, but they haven't really learned all the letters of the alphabet yet. I think that they will be doing more work with it in third grade.

My daughter learned it, but never had to use it. The most cursive she does is to sign her name on legal papers. But, her school did a pi$$ poor job of teaching any handwriting. They just had the students look at the letters and write what they saw. Didn't really teach proper form. I have no idea why. Now, middle school and high school is mostly computers. All the students are assigned laptops.

I can't imagine anyone not knowing how to write.

I have heard about this recently and I think it is wrong. Reading and writing cursive is something everyone should know how to do.