Write Away?

This piece by Lucy Moss recently appeared in the TES.

Do we really need to teach 
(or use) cursive handwriting?

The issue of whether students need to produce joined-up writing is a divisive one 
– Lucy Moss takes a look at the debate                                             

Everyone has an opinion on handwriting. 

It’s a divisive issue that can take up whole staff meetings and Inset sessions, and often commands its own official policy in school. 

Speaking to a colleague recently, we got on to the subject of teachers’ handwriting. While we agreed that it is essential for teachers to lead by example and write neatly and legibly in learners’ books, we disagreed on whether that should be in a certain style. 

Cursive handwriting

She felt that all staff should use the school handwriting policy. She pointed out that I do this – which is true. But that is how I prefer to write at work; it does not mean everyone should do it. 

I recently worked with a fantastic colleague who wrote neatly and legibly in students’ books but who did not, at any time, use the school’s cursive style. 

I didn’t feel this mattered as the children could read the comments. It just happened to be that person’s style.

Writing requirements

We should be making handwriting a priority with our children. My personal belief is that handwriting is an art form and something that should be enjoyed. 

But how important is it, really, for that handwriting to be cursive? Is a child producing better work just because their letters join together? 

I decided to run a Twitter poll to gain just a snapshot of what other educators think. It ran for only 48 hours and gained a modest 133 votes, but the result was overwhelming. 

I asked if it is important for handwriting in schools to be cursive: 16 per cent said yes, 9 per cent said learners should be able to choose whether to join or not, and  75 per cent said it was more important for writing to “just be neat and legible”. 

A flexible approach

It would appear they are in agreement, then, with the assessment framework for Year 6, which requires children to write “legibly, and at speed”. A cursive style is not mentioned.

Cursive writing has long been linked to economy of effort and therefore greater output. But my experience, and it would seem, the experience of many other teachers, is that this is not the case for all children. 

There is also the argument that cursive script tampers with learners’ ability to read and decode texts produced in other fonts. As a former Year 6 teacher, I always strived to expose my class to as many different types of text as possible - mainly in preparation for the infamous reading test booklet, but also because I believe a more rounded reader is produced from picking up and perusing leaflets, online texts, reference books, newspapers, archaic texts, playscripts – the list goes on. 

It is important to take pride in our work and in the writing that we produce. Writing is in many ways becoming a lost art, with texts and emails often replacing pen pal letters. 

But perhaps in our quest for perfection, for that approval following the book scrutiny, we have lost the ability to allow children to express themselves, find their personal style, and work around any fine motor issues to become confident, legible writers. 

Lucy Moss

Lucy Moss is a KS2 leader in an inner city primary school

And here is my comment in reply.

Professor Cripps did a great deal of research on the connections between spelling and handwriting. He argues (very persuasively) that there is a strong link between spelling and handwriting because the English language is made up of groups of letters that appear again and again. "Ing" is an obvious example, but there are many more (cou-, the, qu-, -and and -ant are examples that spring to mind). Therefore teaching children to join up their letters will actually help them with their spelling, as their hand gets used to forming these groups of letters. Unfortunately, Lucy Moss has not mentioned Cripps's research anywhere in her TES article. I do not think that handwriting is something that we can look at entirely separately from other issues. If joining up your handwriting can help to improve your spelling, then surely this is a strong argument in its favour?

Is it quicker to write your letters separately or is it quicker to join them up? Again, this matter of writing speed is not an issue that is mentioned in Lucy Moss's TES article. Having been in the teaching profession since 1982, I would say that some students do find it slower to join up their letters at first, especially if they have already become used to writing or "printing" each letter separately. It does take some time and effort for a student to learn to join up their letters, I readily concede, but students who can write with "joined up writing" can usually write a lot faster than those who are "printing". It is often the case that joined up handwriting also has the added advantage of looking more mature and more sophisticated than "printing".

Yes, legibility and neatness are important. I think that most teachers (and most students and their parents) would agree with Lucy Moss. But is "printing" the only way to guarantee legibility and neatness? Or is it no guarantee at all? Sometimes, it is true, students who start to join up their handwriting may actually produce wrting that is more untidy and less legible, but often their writing becomes neater and more legible as they become more confident and relaxed.

Fiona Kolontaris has argued that a "one-size-fits-all aproach to handwriting" is outdated. Well, perhaps she is right and it might be outdated, antique, modern, trendy, old-fashioned, neo-classical or whatever. Students and their parents, on the other hand, have to face up to the reality of written examinations (again, a topic not mentioned in Lucy Moss's TES article). Therefore I would argue that it is the duty of all teachers to do their best to prepare their students for written examinations, so we need to help them to get their ideas down on paper quickly, clearly, legibly and with the minimum or errors.