From the International Dyslexia Association:

http://www.dyslexiasd.org/factsheets/dysgraphia.pdf

Quote :

"For many children with dysgraphia, cursive writing has several advantages. It eliminates the necessity of picking up a pencil and deciding where to replace it after each letter. Each letter starts on the line, thus eliminating another potentially confusing decision for the writer. Cursive also has very few reversible letters, a typical source of trouble for people with dysgraphia. It eliminates word-spacing problems and gives words a flow and rhythm that enhances learning. For children who find it difficult to remember the motor patterns of letter forms, starting with cursive eliminates the traumatic transition from manuscript to cursive writing. Writers in cursive also have more opportunity to distinguish b, d, p, and q because the cursive letter formations for writing each of these letters is so different."

Those same qualities that help students with dysgraphia will make for a more natural learning process for every student. I can't overstate the effect on fine motor skills, logical connections, spelling, spacing, etc.

By the way, it is standard practice in most of Europe to teach cursive first, and to require it in all assignments from the beginning. The UK was the only exception, and they are starting to move toward the Continent on that issue. We are in the minority, and for no good reason.

2/24/2013 1:50:09 AM

I don't know that it makes sense to make teaching cursive "the law."

But cursive or cursive/print is a valuable skill, and I'll even buy a little of what TULIPlovr is saying about the cursive/reading/the brain.

I do think basic skills are super duper important. We just tend to place emphases on them in the wrong way at the wrong time.

[Edited on February 24, 2013 at 2:11 AM. Reason : ]

2/24/2013 1:58:06 AM

Quote :

" Quote : "So basically you're saying that as a parent you have never taken the time to look at a clock with your son and teach him a life skill that a parent should teach? That's some mighty fine parenting." I'm not his parent. Having just explained that I am an independent tutor by profession, I assumed that people would know what "I have a sixth-grader who..." meant. "

The first mention of tutor in this thread was when you typed it in the above paragraph.

2/24/2013 8:05:22 AM

Quote :

"Quote : "You realize that students still learn both multiplication and cursive throughout school?" It is pretty safe for me to say that no, they don't. They may be taught it, which is better than nothing. But obviously there has been no learning, or I would have met a student somewhere who actually knew how multiplication works. In their notebooks, I have yet to see students who take notes primarily in cursive. That would have happened if they had actually learned it. It wouldn't necessarily be everyone, but it would be someone. Putting my old man hat on for a related rant - I have a sixth grader who told me that last year he looked on the internet to find out how to tell time. He's a really bright kid, two years above his grade level in math, but had simply never been taught."

Wait are you saying as an aspect of this bill, you want to force students to also write in cursive? I stopped writing in cursive about 6th grade because my cursive is nearly unreadable.

And my parents taught me to tell time, it took then pulling me aside one Sunday evening. You're a negligent parent for blaming the school system for this. Wow.

Your argument for legislative action on this is pretty pathetic, and you seem to be a terrible parent.

2/24/2013 11:14:50 AM

^^^^
Lol you don't think the teachers or parents or students are all aware of techniques for coping with learning disabilities?

You would make a good politician, you presume you know better how to run a school than the experts who have spent their entire lives researching it.

[Edited on February 24, 2013 at 11:20 AM. Reason : ]

2/24/2013 11:15:40 AM

Quote :

" I don't think teacher's associations or superintendents know any better than our legislators"

Whoops, I thought you were a Republican. I apologize, carry on.

2/24/2013 12:06:53 PM

I'm just now seeing the discussion of ALEC on the first page of this thread. Did they write this bill? What do the shoot first stand your ground/voting rights restriction/anti-environment/pro-private schools group want out of this?

I've seen that the GOP has been pushing this in a few different states, so ALEC being behind it could make sense as a common thread.

But how do Exxon Mobile and the Koch Brothers benefit from writing/pushing this bill?

2/24/2013 1:14:44 PM

ALEC was behind it in Indiana, and most of the sponsors now are members of ALEC who attended the summit that discussed education policy. Of the bills primary sponsors, one has a high school diploma and later attended community college and might have been a teacher in the 50's and has never received campaign contributions from educators and the other has a political science degree and worked in HR and only tie to education is a $115 contribution from someone who was a teacher and now owns vending machines.

If it's educators calling for it then this could easily be coincidence, but I can't find anything showing that we had anyone asking for this. TULIPlovr cited something from the International Dyslexia Association, but I'd be really surprised if they are lobbying for a law in NC.

2/24/2013 1:43:00 PM

So if the focus of education is supposed to rely so heavily on STEM, why do we need this?

Then again, we are also trusting a retired realtor with a degree in solid state physics on climatology in this state, so I guess we may as well just shit out some more bad bills and become Mississippi.

[Edited on February 25, 2013 at 1:35 PM. Reason : z]

2/25/2013 1:32:04 PM

Quote :

"Lol you don't think the teachers or parents or students are all aware of techniques for coping with learning disabilities?"

They are, and that is why cursive is a common part of programs for those kids. But, by teaching print first, those students usually struggle for years before we identify the problem. We then help them, in large part, by going back to the way they should have been taught in the first place.

Quote :

"The first mention of tutor in this thread was when you typed it in the above paragraph."

You're quite right. My first post didn't say 'tutor.' It said:

Quote :

""I work with students from 3rd grade through seniors in AP courses. I teach English, writing, grammar, and math through Calculus. I work with most of my students for a few months at a time in individual sessions."

I'm not sure how that reads as anything but 'tutor.'

Quote :

"Whoops, I thought you were a Republican. I apologize, carry on."

Not even close to being a Republican.

Quote :

"You would make a good politician, you presume you know better how to run a school than the experts who have spent their entire lives researching it."

My earlier point stands - the experts are the ones who make my business prosper. Their opinion shouldn't carry a lot of weight.

The politicians aren't terribly enlightened either, and often have an impulse just to return to previous methods out of nostalgia and cranky-old-man syndrome. However, when results were better in the past than they are now, that's a rational starting point.

I notice that none of y'all have been upset about the requirement to teach multiplication tables. I find that interesting.

2/25/2013 3:01:55 PM

Quote :

"I notice that none of y'all have been upset about the requirement to teach multiplication tables. I find that interesting."

Are you honestly trying to insinuate that it's inappropriate to think people should learn BASIC MATH but not cursive script?

And yeah, you're not a Republican, but I'm pretty sure I remember that you once defended one of those far right Christian groups that thought it was ok to make laws criminalizing homosexuality (the one with the hipster kids). Yeah, you're somewhere to the right of Francisco Franco.

2/25/2013 3:33:01 PM

I'm not sure how I feel about multiplication tables.

Part of me thinks rote memorization is dumb and just learning the concept of multiplication is better. The other part of me wonders if I'm better at longer multiplication than I'd otherwise be because I memorized all the single digit tables when I was a kid.

Anything over 10x10 is unnecessary though.

2/25/2013 4:03:26 PM

It's irrelevant. There's no universe where they're not teaching multiplication, and there's no reason ever for an idiot legislator to say "YOU MUST TEACH MULTIPLICATION IN THIS WAY".

2/25/2013 4:11:03 PM

Quote :

"Part of me thinks rote memorization is dumb and just learning the concept of multiplication is better. The other part of me wonders if I'm better at longer multiplication than I'd otherwise be because I memorized all the single digit tables when I was a kid."

rote memorization by itself is dumb. rote memorization + true understanding of the concept is the most efficient. Realistically, you're only going to retain the rote memorization as long as you keep needing to recall what's memorized. you'll pretty much always use the most basic arithmetic, so you don't need to "process" those basic four function calculations, you just recall them.

When I was technical, I learned how to convert between decimal, binary, and hex, and over time, I had memorized so much binary math, that I could do all but the most esoteric network masking with blazing speed, in my head. I'm only three years removed from needing that on a regular basis, and the vast majority of that muscle memory is gone. However, I learned the concept, so I could derive it pretty easily, although more slowly.

at some level of granularity, you have to memorize a set of building blocks. letters, numbers, etc. How to spell certain words. The English language has all sorts of rules for how things are spelled, (i before e and shit), but then there are multiple exceptions that you just have to memorize.

Anyway, tl;dr, rote memorization alone=bad, rote memorization + conceptual understanding = good

[Edited on February 25, 2013 at 4:35 PM. Reason : Also, cursive has as much utility as calligraphy in 2013. Tuliplovr is stupid.]

2/25/2013 4:34:10 PM

Quote :

"My earlier point stands - the experts are the ones who make my business prosper. Their opinion shouldn't carry a lot of weight. "

forget experts, show me current teachers calling for this law

2/25/2013 5:27:39 PM

teaching cursive these days is about as important as teaching kids the dewey decimal system.

2/25/2013 8:56:47 PM

If we want to mandate this, what part of the curriculum should we remove to fit it in? What's less important?

2/26/2013 8:11:59 AM

^ science and critical thinking skills

2/26/2013 4:59:30 PM

Liberal arts, of course. You won't need those in college anyhow, if the Governor has his way.

2/26/2013 11:45:56 PM

I ain't got time to think critically, I'm too busy writing capital Q's that look like 2's.

2/26/2013 11:52:11 PM

I wonder what John Hancock's signature would have looked like if he was forced to sign the Declaration of Independence with one of those shitty electronic credit-card machines they have at the grocery store.

2/27/2013 12:00:38 AM