Handwriting is a means of expressing language, just like speech. However, handwriting is not taught in school as much as in previous years. In the past, handwriting was taught as a precursor to reading and spelling. Today, students of all ages are rigorously tested on their writing skills, yet they are not allowed the time it takes to develop this skill. I remember writing in a Big Chief notebook, holding a chubby pencil, trying my best to make the curves and lines of the letters just right. When I attended elementary school, the teacher devoted at least forty-five minutes to handwriting each day. Handwriting should still be taught in school because it is an essential first step to reading and expressing one’s thoughts and feelings and because of its impact on higher education.
Writing is linked to spelling and reading because reading depends on letter recognition. Students become familiar with letters through writing. When a student manipulates the curves and lines of letters, he uses sight and touch, which reinforces the shapes of the letters into memory. Learning about letters also promotes curiosity about their sounds. Sound and hearing is brought into play as the student begins sounding out letters and words. As they write, students learn that print is actually an ordered sequence of letters, instead of a random jumble. If a child does not learn to recognize letters and words instantly, he will have a very difficult time learning letter sounds and recognizing actual words. Learning to read will be extremely difficult.
Handwriting is an important part of education. Many states require essay tests in which content is more important than handwriting or even spelling. But those essays still need to be legib...
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...rner. Teachers simply don’t have enough time to teach handwriting. We want students to be able to express themselves, and be assessed on this skill, yet these same students have to rely on electronic devices not only for writing, but for grammar and vocabulary. Most schools don’t have funding to place a computer in every student’s hands, so they should not be asked to replace writing with typing. Learning to write by hand should be taught in elementary school because of its impact on learning to read, self-expression and higher education.
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Cursive should not be taught in schools! Schools don’t need cursive. There are other things that kids could be doing in class. Read my next paragraph to find out what and why.
25. Handwriting in the south African curriculum. South African education. south Africa : s.n., Developmental stages of learning , p. 8.
Maria Konnikova states in her article “What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades” that “[I]n alexia, or impaired reading ability, some individuals who are unable to process print can still read cursive, and vice versa.” This fact proves how vital at least a few lessons on cursive writing could be. Children suffering from various learning disabilities will be more successful if they are taught more ways to succeed. For some children cursive will be a real challenge and they would much prefer to use standard writing. For others, cursive will help them remember things more
What benefits does cursive writing hold, if students were to learn? Phsycologists found that if students hand write vs. type they remember better what was wriiten down. Well who said you need to know cursive to hand write? There is something called fine print, and we use that everyday of our lives. You just don't need cursive anymore. That is why it should never be required.
Phonemic Awareness and Alphabetic Principle in addition to Phonics and Decoding Skills provide students with early skills of understanding letters and words in order to build their reading and writing skills. Students will need to recognize how letters make a sound in order to form a word. While each word has a different meaning to be to format sentences. While reading strategies for Reading Assessment and Instruction, I was able to find three strategies for Phonemic Awareness and three strategies for Alphabetic Principles which will provide advantage for the student in my research and classroom settings.
With the swarm of technology, handwriting, a vital skill, may be on the brink of extinction, despite that it is able to create a “model citizen, assimilate immigrants, and even reform juvenile delinquents” (Korper). Believe it or not: handwriting is important. However, the debate about handwriting is still questionable. Handwriting allows for effective memory retention and is an significant and unique action to develop certain regions of your brain (Grossberg). However, handwriting is also outdated and lacks the agility of the keyboard (Korper). Nonetheless, some of these positive aspects of handwriting are largely due to the ‘drill’ factor emphasized in the Palmer Method of handwriting used present day (Korper).
Why shouldn’t cursive be in school? Most young children grow up hoping to learn to write the beautiful loops called cursive, but these days it’s getting used less and less; we need to get to the bottom of it. Cursive use to be used worldwide, but is being used less and less each year. Many of the children in modern day don’t know how to read or write cursive well, or rarely at all, but why?
Thesis: Cursive writing should be taught in school because children today only know how to hashtag and text. Very few actually know how to write in cursive. Learning cursive will enhance students’ spelling ability and reading skills. It will also help students with learning disabilities.
Reading is a complex process that’s difficult to explain linearly. A student’s reading capabilities begin development long before entering the school setting and largely start with exposure (Solley, 2014). The first remnants of what children are able to do in terms of reading are built from their parents and other people and object around them as they’re read to, spoken to, and taken from place to place to see new things (Solley, 2014). As kids are exposed to more and more their noises quickly turn into intentional comprehensible messages and their scribbling begins to take the form of legible text as they attempt to mimic the language(s) they’re exposed to daily.
“Handwriting is 50 percent of literacy, but children are seeing less and less formal handwriting instruction,” said Toni Schulken, a child occupational therapist who is dedicated to increasing writing literacy. Vanderbilt University research reveals that children spend just ten minutes a day practicing print and cursive. In many homeschools, parents are simply too buried in lesson plans to squeeze in penmanship. In an effort to keep up with core subjects, some teachers are asking themselves, “What lessons can I forgo?”
Few would argue with the statement that writing skills are in state of decline. It is readily apparent that something needs to be done to resolve the issues that are preventing students from grasping the fundamentals of composition. However, there is a divergence of opinion when it comes to determining the cause of the nation’s writing ails. Many blame technology, giving cell phones and television particular attention. Others give technology a more indirect blame, claiming that email, instant messaging, and cell phones have robbed students of a desire to learn proper writing skills. While these ideas may bear some truth, the root of the problem lies within the instruction of writing, which to a large extent is ineffective. The writing problems faced by students and adults alike are the direct result of ineffective methods of instruction in composition.
Although adequate writing skills are indispensable for life, leisure, and employment, quite a few students do not learn how to write effectively. Since writing is an exercise in thinking, it is important to balance the process of writing with the mechanics of writing. The areas of the brain involved in the writing task are varied yet interrelated; therefore, a student’s individual needs will determine the method of instruction they receive. Many students who have low expectations for their own academic success will not make even minimal efforts to complete a...
Living in America today, students living in this era don’t know how to read or write in cursive handwriting. Many people today don’t know that cursive handwriting has been taken out of public schools for years now. “Today people use the keyboard as a better way of writing” (Hotz). Cursive writing needs to be put back into public schools before the rest of the world becomes a total wreck. Meaning that children will get so wrapped up into the technology world they won’t ever know what a piece of cursive writing is or even looks like. And many parents wouldn’t want that for their children. Cursive handwriting should be put back into public schools, so students nationwide can
Good reading skills are very important in learning languages. Reading improves spelling because as students learn to sound out letters and words, spelling comes easier. It helps to expand the vocabulary, since the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read. Students learn new words as they read and put them in their mind for later use. . They also unconsciously absorb the information about things like how to structure the sentences, how words are used in different contexts, and it gives a better understanding of the word usage and definitions than the cold facts of a dictionary. It improves a person’s vocabulary and knowledge without the person even knowing it. Even if students do not understand every word, they will hear new sounds, words and phrases which they can then try out, copying what they have heard. They can comprehend ideas, follow arguments and detect implications. Reading texts also provide good models for English writing. Krashen (2004) found that reading is extremely important in learning English, since it is the only way to “become a good reader, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammar” and the only way to “become a good speller”.
Writing is such an essential part in any person’s life. If you’re anything like me, writing can be quite therapeutic. In elementary children find joy in writing their name and complete sentences. Once those students get older and reach a middle school age they are drilled to become “testing writers.” Texas students are completely overwhelmed with the writing structure and expectations of a test that by the time they reach high school students are completely burned out and so far withdrawn from a piece of paper and pencil.