ball and stick printing – Hints and Echoes

"The Hand," Oil on Canvas, Herbert Knapp — “The Hand,” Oil on Canvas, Herbert Knapp

Since this is National Handwriting Day, it seems like a good time to talk about whether or not we should teach cursive handwriting in elementary school. Almost everyone engaged in the debate, whether pro or con, assumes that a “cursive” handwriting style is one in which all letters are joined with swoops and festooned with loops. It is true that this is what millions of kids in U.S. schools have been taught over the years. The variation of looped cursive I was taught (the Palmer Method) looks like this:

Looped Cursive handwriting — Looped Cursive

But “cursive” simply means a “running” hand, in which pen lifts are minimized. Fortunately, there is a preferable cursive alternative to the familiar looped varieties. For the past several weeks, I have been teaching myself cursive Italic handwriting with the aid of a workbook. This is the system of handwriting that is taught in European schools and in some private and US public schools as well. It is not a new idea, by any means. Italic handwriting has its roots in the Renaissance. Sometimes the old ways are the best, in this case really old.

There are no loops in Italic handwriting, and not all letter combinations are joined. Yet cursive Italic provides the writer with the means of writing rapidly and consistently.

Italic Cursive handwriting — Italic Cursive

Perhaps the most important aspect of the Italic is that children transition from print to cursive without having to learn a whole new set of letter forms, as they do with a looped cursive hand. Poor little kids. Just when they are getting pretty good at printing, we start all over, usually in third grade, which requires them essentially to unlearn what they ‘ve been doing and learn something entirely different. It’s no wonder that so many opponents of “cursive” are so vehement in their opposition.The printed form that precedes looped cursive involves several pen strokes and is written with the paper held vertically. Sometimes called “ball and stick,” it looks like this:

Ball and Stick handwriting — Ball and Stick

The printed form of Italic, on the other hand, is slightly slanted, just like the cursive form, and many of the letters are formed with only one stroke of the pen. The transition to the cursive form of Italic occurs in second grade when children are taught to join the letter forms they already know. This is printed Italic:

But why teach cursive handwriting at all? Do we really need it?

This is the argument opponents of cursive handwriting make: They say we don’t need to write by hand because nowadays we almost always communicate written language with the aid of an electronic device. When we need to communicate by hand, we can just print. We should not waste class time teaching something we don’t need.

But that is a very narrow definition of “need.” There is some evidence that the fine muscular control demanded of those learning to write rapidly and continuously by hand yields benefits far beyond the ability to produce a grocery list.There is apparently a vital connection between the brain and the hand that comes into play when one writes connecting letters. I think that this is where the most powerful argument for retaining cursive handwriting in the classroom resides.

There is no doubt that the writing of cursive requires different, more complex movements than tapping a keyboard or printing unconnected letters. The personal experience of those of us who write a lot by hand and the experience of many teachers suggest that the ability to write a flowing hand facilitates creativity, helps memory and promotes learning.

So I say let’s get rid of the wasteful practice of teaching ball and stick printing , drop the loop-de-loop form of cursive that has given so many people fits, and introduce a more efficient, simpler way of teaching kids to connect their letters and eventually develop a mature, legible, and graceful cursive hand.

I intend to return to this subject in future posts. I am particularly interested in finding out what research has been done on the brain/hand connection and how it might influence our opinion about the need for cursive writing. If you’d like to follow along, type your email in the “follow” box and you will receive all future posts by email. Or you can bookmark this site and check in from time to time.

And I’d love to hear your ideas about cursive in our schools. Just leave your comment below. For more on cursive handwriting, type the word “cursive” in the search box.

The workbook I am using to learn Italic is Write Now by Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay. It is designed for the use of adults who want to improve their handwriting.

"I don't read cursive." — “I don’t read cursive.”

We should not have been surprised when the star witness for the prosecution in the George Zimmerman trial, a 19-year-old high school graduate, couldn’t read a letter handed to her by the defense attorney because, as she explained, “I don’t read cursive.” For many young people, cursive handwriting might as well be hieroglyphics. High school teachers say they no longer write in cursive on the board or on student papers because their students can’t read it. The customer rep at my bank recently told me that she has to print when she writes a note to the tellers.

Where The Teaching of Cursive Stands The new Common Core Standards, adopted by 45 states, make the teaching of handwriting optional, and sentiment for dropping it altogether is widespread. To their credit, five State Boards of Education—Alabama, Massachusetts, Georgia, California, and Kansas—have included cursive in the standards for their schools, and the North Carolina legislature has actually passed a law requiring the teaching of cursive.

As far as I know, nobody is recommending that we not teach any form of handwriting at all. Typically manuscript printing or what is known as “ball-and-stick” is taught in first (sometimes kindergarten) through second grade. Cursive has then been taught in third though fourth grade. It should be said here that there are different forms of cursive writing. What most people think of as cursive is whatever they themselves were taught, which in the United States is probably a form of what might be called “looped or conventional cursive.” An alternative, Italic cursive, has no loops, is not preceded by ball-and-stick printing, but printed letters that are like the cursive form but unconnected. Many people assume that ball-and-stick, because it looks like print in books, helps children learn to read.

But What About That? Ball-and-stick was first introduced in the New York City school system in 1922 by Marjorie Wise, a reading specialist. Before then, children just learned cursive from the beginning. Wise herself eventually recognized that there are drawbacks to ball and stick, but by then it had caught on throughout the United States and we were stuck with it. Actually because of the fluid left-to-right movement of cursive and the fact that spaces come between words, not individual letters, it is more helpful to the beginning reader than ball-and-stick.

But why teach cursive at all? In ways not yet fully understood, being able to write fluently and rapidly in a running hand actually helps the brain learn how to work more efficiently. Research suggests that cursive facilitates creativity, helps memory, and gives kids a powerful tool for learning. What is unique about cursive is the fluidity of movement, which does not happen when one has to lift the pen between every letter or when one is tapping on a keyboard.

Where do we go from here? I’m afraid that saving cursive depends on more neuroscientific research. Only that will convince many teachers and parents that there are benefits to be had from knowing how to write fluently in a running hand that no other form of written communication offers. It will take time, but I’m convinced that will happen. Meanwhile it seems we will be turning out high school graduates who cannot sign their names.