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California signs cursive writing into law

5 points| necrodome | 2 years ago |bbc.com

3 comments

order

ithkuil|2 years ago

My son in Italy is in second trade and reads and writes fluently cursive and printed text.

Perhaps the trick is that Italian doesn't have such a fucked up spelling so that kids don't have to waste so much time wrapping their heads around what's this "writing" stuff all about.

QuadrupleA|2 years ago

Kind of a waste - cursive seems way harder to read (to me anyway), and studies show it isn't any faster to write.

Sorta like teaching and encouraging Pig Latin.

justanotherbody|2 years ago

Certainly my cursive is harder to read.

Growing up in US public schools cursive was mandatory in ~5th grade in my district. Then shortly after (6th grade? 7th?) it became optional and the vast majority of my peers quit writing it

I persisted because I actually preferred it, only to be actively encouraged by teachers collecting longer written assignments to write _normally_ on account of my cursive being harder to read

It didn't end up mattering - computers and printed assignments were rapidly becoming the norm. I always thought teaching cursive was a strange choice

It may be worth noting that the legibility of my penmanship is generally poor. I wonder if perhaps emphasizing legibility has similar positive effects on developing brains...