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`C- May 6 , 2014 8:15, Not yet updated.
R- They do not take a side. They discuss why it is still in certain schools.
A- pbs.org By PBS news. PBS has been a reputable site for getting information ans for lessons for kids.
A- No spelling errors
P-To inform you about what schools and why they are still using cursive.

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Starting in the 1970s, and under the recent implementation of the Common Core, a former pillar of elementary education has been largely forgotten. But there's a feeling that learning cursive still has value, even in the age of typing and texting. The NewsHour's April Brown reports from North Carolina, one of a handful of states that's moved to make learning the formal, curlicue letters mandatory.

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Why some schools still insist on lessons in elegant cursive

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Starting in the 1970s, and under the recent implementation of the Common Core, a former pillar of elementary education has been largely forgotten. But there's a feeling that learning cursive still has value, even in the age of typing and texting.

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C- 7:47 am august 15, 3013
updated 8:15 August 15, 2013
R- Agrees with claim , gives a bit of a counter claim from another point of view.
A- KMGH staff abca.actionnews.com reputable because it is a news station.
A- No spelling errors.
P- To inform you about the benefits of cursive, and why they don't teach it anymore.

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DENVER -- You may want to hold off before sending a handwritten note to your grandchild. That's because a growing number of young people can no longer read cursive.

Since the U.S. adopted Common Core standards in public schools back in 2010, cursive has declined and even disappeared entirely in some school districts.

But, is erasing cursive to the detriment of future generations?

Let's begin with keeping cursive alive - in the home studio of Srujana Nimmagadda, owner of Menakshee Designs.

"Learning to write well is something that you're never going to regret," said Srujana Nimmagadda, owner of Menakshee Designs. During the day, she works at Bel Aerospace as an engineer. But she also practices the art of calligraphy.

For her, it's not a cloudy issue at all; good handwriting has value.

"I think there's just a different sort of connection that you have receiving a hand-written letter," Nimmagadda said.

And she argues there's a quiet confidence projected when communicating in cursive.

"If there's a way to keep it in schools, I think they should," she said.

But according to Dr. Krista Griffin, a literacy professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, there isn't a lot of research that suggests keeping - or dropping - cursive in schools.

"There isn't a lot of research supporting cursive one way or another," Griffin said.

She has 25 years of experience teaching future teachers.

"There's no one-size-fits-all anything in education," Griffin said. "That's what I tell those future teachers."

Griffin says in the 21st century, with high stakes standardized testing, cursive isn't always worth valuable classroom time, especially given the demands put on teachers today.

"If I'm a teacher and I know my job is dependent on how well my students do, cursive isn't on the test," she said.

But, she also sees strong cognitive learning with reading and writing in cursive.

"When I'm taking notes, I can't move as quickly as when I'm keyboarding," Griffin said. "So, I'm going to be thinking about what the professor is saying and paraphrasing, which is a higher-level cognitive skill."

Other experts agree.

"There's a myth that in the era of computers we don't need handwriting," said a leading national researcher. "That's not what our research is showing. What we found was that children until about Grade 6 were writing more words, writing faster and expressing more ideas if they could use handwriting - printing or cursive."

Victor Camacho, the owner of High Performance Tutoring, questions the time-commitment given to cursive.

"I learned cursive when I was in 3rd grade," Camacho said. "And I haven't used it since. There was no real practical reason to use it."

Camacho and his 35 tutors put a heavy emphasis on STEM disciplines.

"Art is practical in that it kind of feeds our soul in a sense," Camacho said. "But, it's not practical in the sense that, 'Oh - you need to eat.'"

He believes a greater emphasis on things like statistics, personal finance and computer programming would be much more beneficial in school than teaching cursive.

Camacho believes higher proficiency in those skills could also alleviate many ongoing societal issues.

"If we replace cursive with helping people manage their finances, I think that would go a long way," he said. "How to manage money and how compounding interest works and how investments work and risks vs. returns. That's what children should be learning."

Stephanie Rosalky is the owner of Wash Park Tutoring, and she doesn't disagree.

"Cursive is not a skill that is needed today to be successful," Rosalky said. "Everything has really moved to a technology platform."

But, Rosalky says cursive does have practical applications, for example, it can help with disorders like dyslexia on a case-by-case basis.

"It kind of limits some reversals that are happening for students," Rosalky said.

"I have a friend who has dyslexia and she will do less reversals and omit fewer letters when she uses cursive," Griffin said.

Both Griffin and Rosalky also respect the argument that cursive is a long-forgotten, elegant form of writing that is appreciated more by older generations.

"They see it as a very personal way of communicating that gets lost," Griffin said.

"It is beautiful," Rosalky said. "It looks very nice."

"There's something very grounding about picking up a pen and paper," Nimmagadda said. "There's a lot of history and tradition. You can tell what's happening in a society through the years as you study a style of script."
This story was originally published by Russell Haythorn on KMGH in Denver.

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Should we bring back cursive, or is it irrelevant in our technology-driven world?

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Since the U.S. adopted Common Core standards in public schools back in 2010, cursive has declined and even disappeared entirely in some school districts. But, is erasing cursive to the detriment of future generations?

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C- March 3, 2013. Not updated
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A- No Spelling errors
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# data[].attributes.body
C- Published in 2005, not updated
R- Agrees with my claim, not counter argument
A- By Sam Blunenfeld by home-school.com. Kind of reputable because it is opinion based.
A- No spelling errors
P- To persuade you because it is based on their opinion and itll be biased.

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C- N/A
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A-
A-
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# data[].attributes.body
C- No date given
R- does it pick a side
A- wonerpolis.org- credible site because t is a .org
A- no publisher given, and no spelling errors.
P- It is to inform you about the style of cursive.

# data[].attributes.body
C- uploaded to youtube, Dec 5, 2017
R- Agrees with my claim, partially because it is teaching you.
A- Mazic Writer
A- No errors
P- It is teaching you how to write cursive.

# data[].attributes.body
C- November 6, 2017, not updated,
R- Yes and no, it has both points of view of the argument and does not take a side.
A- Matt Grant, from healthyway.com could be reputable because of the health way and the information on it.
A- Missing letters and punctuation.
P- To inform you, since both sides are to inform you and it doens't try to make you take a side.

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Any school child knows the three "Rs": reading, writing, and arithmetic. It seems a given that these three skills will always form the backbone of a child's educational development. Yet for students who graduated from elementary school before 2010, visiting a modern-day classroom may contain some noticeable differences.

In particular, one might notice the absence of cursive, the style of penmanship marked by conjoined letters. The adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCS), a set of benchmarks in math and English designed for kindergarten through twelfth grade, has set off a debate over handwriting and cursive and when-or even if-such skills should still be taught.

"The Common Core State Standards were developed through a state-led effort in 2009 and 2010 and published in June 2010," says Olympia Meola, press secretary for the Council of Chief State School Officers, an organization that co-sponsored the standards.

"Since then, states have voluntarily chosen to adopt the Common Core, or chosen to develop other standards that prepare students for college and careers. There is not a standard specific to cursive writing in the Common Core; instead, these standards give schools and teachers the flexibility to teach cursive writing in the classroom. States also have the flexibility to adopt standards above and beyond the Common Core State Standards."

To date, 42 of the 50 U.S. states have adopted the CCS, but only 14 have passed laws requiring cursive proficiency. Everyone from local, state, and federal officials to educators, psychologists, and scientists are sharply divided on the issue. Cursive's defenders say it's a valuable skill and can aid in word proficiency; its detractors call it a waste of time and want more relevant skill building, like keyboarding.

Steve Graham, Warner professor at Arizona State University's School of Education, says that the benefits of handwriting can be boiled down to a few essential elements. "There's different styles of handwriting: there's manuscript, which is a stick and ball; there's cursive, which has joined letters; and there's italics," he says.

"There's other forms as well, but the two that have dominated this country are manuscript and cursive." Graham says that in looking at these two forms of script and considering their benefits, it's helpful to think in terms of reader and writer effects.

There's evidence that suggests if your handwriting is less legible, then people form negative opinions about what you're saying.

"By reader effects, what you're really talking about in terms of handwriting ... is if it's hard to read what's written because the handwriting is not legible or less legible, then that influences the reader. And second, there's evidence that suggests if your handwriting is less legible, then people form negative opinions about what you're saying."

Knowing this, Graham says, the question becomes which is more legible: cursive or manuscript? "If you ask a person on the street, usually they'll say manuscript," he says. "But the reality is that there's not much real difference in terms of legibility, if you have an equal amount of practice in both."

In terms of writer effects, Graham says the thing to look at is automaticity. "The more automatic you are, usually the more fluent you are," he says. "If you're writing something by hand or you're typing it, and your ideas are coming really fast but you're not such a good typist or you're not really quick with handwriting, then ideas might slip away out of your working memory as you're trying to write them down."

Graham points out this is something that happens to all writers, no matter how efficient they are. But it highlights the fact that someone's dexterity with handwriting can interfere with other processes, like content generation.

Do we need to teach two forms of handwriting, or should we just teach one?

"So the question [now] is, which is faster: cursive, or manuscript?" Graham says. "If you ask the typical person on the street, the answer you'll get is, 'cursive's faster.' But when you actually look at the data, as long as there's an equal amount of practice, then there's not much difference. You might get a little edge for cursive for the speed issue, and for the legibility issue, you get a little bit of an edge for manuscript. ...So, the question becomes: Do we need to teach two forms of handwriting, or should we just teach one? My opinion on this, given that's such a crowded curriculum, is we should teach one."

Graham's assertion is that people are overreacting over the loss of cursive. "I think too much has been made of this issue," he says.

In Arizona, you have state legislators passing a law that you have to teach cursive handwriting.

"In Arizona, you have state legislators passing a law that you have to teach cursive handwriting. Come on, give me a break-they don't have anything better to do, that they need to be legislating what teachers teach in terms of ... handwriting? I think this is one of these things [where] we assume we're losing something, and I'm not exactly sure what we're losing by teaching one versus teaching two, as long as we teach one well."

Yet Virginia Berninger, an experimental and licensed clinical psychologist and professor emerita at the University of Washington, says that the loss of cursive puts students at a real disadvantage, particularly those with learning disabilities. Berninger has been involved in a number of studies that she says show the unique benefits of cursive on understanding letter formation.

For instance, a longitudinal study showed that when comparing manuscript, cursive, and keyboarding from students from grades four to seven, "It was the cursive that was uniquely contributing to [children's] spelling and to their composing quality," she says.

"We think that's because with cursive, there are connecting strokes that link the letters, and we think that helps with creating those word units representing what you need for spelling." Since cursive was originally invented to speed up writing, being able to write faster may have given students a composing advantage.

Berninger goes on to say that for students with learning disabilities in reading and writing, the physical act of handwriting is often beneficial. "What we've learned in our research in the last six years, is that even if a learning disability involves reading, like pronouncing words or reading comprehension, it still has writing problems associated with it," she says.

This correlation between reading and writing in learning disabled children has largely been ignored. "Dyslexia is not just a reading disability," she says. "In addition to word reading, the more persistent problems ... are spelling problems. That can affect [a child's] composing."

Berninger's recommendation then, contrary to Graham's, is that children should be taught to be hybrid writers. "You teach manuscript first for two years, and then you teach them the cursive," she says.

In due time, cursive will help with spelling and composing.

Teaching manuscript alone has its own benefits. "Teaching printing, we found in several studies, transfers to improving your word reading. We think because the production of the letters enhances perception of the letters. So that helps with reading, and in due time, cursive will help with spelling and composing."

Berninger says it doesn't even take that much to teach a student good handwriting. "People say, 'With everything else we have to do, how can we possibly find time to teach handwriting?' Well actually, it only takes five or 10 minutes a day, or even three times a week, and you really can accomplish a lot," she says.

In other fields, like medicine and law, you do have members of the community that more actively participate in making the standards. For whatever reason, we have not accorded that privilege to the teachers.

Part of the issue for Berninger is that the Common Core standards are not written by actual educators. "We have people who are legislators, government regulars, educational policy people ... they're the ones that are writing these standards," she says.

"Rarely if ever have they been classroom teachers, actually working with kids. We do think this is a critical issue-we're not getting enough of the voice of the classroom teacher into making these standards and policies. In other fields, like medicine and law, you do have members of the community that more actively participate in making the standards. For whatever reason, we have not accorded that privilege to the teachers."

One area in which Graham and Berninger agree is that there needs to be more keyboarding taught in the classroom. "It's a changing world in terms of how we compose," Graham says. "If you're not at school, most composing isn't done by hand now, it's done digitally, or by spoken word when you speak into your phone."

But Berninger says that in her research, she found that students don't usually start to see benefits from keyboarding until they get to seventh grade.

This idea that we just need to use the technology, we don't need our 'old fashioned' tools, it's a mindset that we need to be a bit more cautious about in general.

She believes this might be because handwriting uses only one hand, but keyboarding uses both. Developmentally, right brain/left brain myelination doesn't mature until early adolescence. It could also be due to the fact that keyboarding skills are neglected in the classroom. "Schools in general are not teaching kids to use the computers, the keyboarding part," she says. "And so it may just be there hasn't been as much instruction."

Still, Berninger doesn't believe that typing should ever replace handwriting. "Every problem we're going to solve, we're going to create technology for it," she says. "So this idea that we just need to use the technology, we don't need our 'old fashioned' tools, it's a mindset that we need to be a bit more cautious about in general. That's led to the dismissal of the importance of handwriting."

But Graham says the real problem is a myopic focus on handwriting as just one of many skills students need to be good writers. He says that out of 20 or so interviews he does a year on the subject of writing, eight out of 10 of those focus on handwriting alone. Only two are about writing more generally.

"That's an odd balance, to be honest," he says. "Handwriting is one of many skills that one needs to master to become a skilled writer. Students don't write very well, and we don't do a very good job of teaching it in schools. But we seem to be maniacally focused on handwriting." He adds, "I don't want to take away anything from handwriting, but it seems out of balance."

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Should Cursive Still Be Taught In Schools?

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Any school child knows the three "Rs": reading, writing, and arithmetic. It seems a given that these three skills will always form the backbone of a child's educational development. Yet for students who graduated from elementary school before 2010, visiting a modern-day classroom may contain some noticeable differences.

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C- February 20, 2017, says updated but doesn't give a date.
R- Yes it supports mdy claim, and does not give a counter argument.
A- By Bethany Mandel by nypost.com, reputatbe because it because it is a new station.
A- one grammar mistake.
P- It is to persuade you, it only has the good points about cursive writing.

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When Jack Lew was nominated to be Treasury secretary in 2013, President Barack Obama joked that as a condition of the appointment, Lew would have to learn to sign his name more legibly. The secretary's signature, after all, was going to appear on US currency.

Lew, a New Yorker, was a city public-school student. And now the school system that produced him is hoping to iron out that particular wrinkle for any future potential Treasury secretary: New York is bringing back cursive instruction.

Thanks to our education system, few Americans are learning cursive, and thus, are unable to legibly sign their own names. As the federal government has become more involved in the day-to-day workings of the American classroom, a focus on test prep has become teachers' main objective. That means useful skills that fall outside the testing pattern often are neglected.

Which is what makes a decision last week from the New York City Department of Education so refreshing. When federal education standards called Common Core were adopted by the city, penmanship classes were dropped. But the current instructional handbook includes a manual for teaching cursive, and according to NBC4, many schools have already begun to implement cursive instruction.

They should be cheered for it - even if they don't grasp just why it's so important.

In a statement last week, Nicole Malliotakis, a Staten Island assemblywoman who pushed for the change, said the reason to add cursive was so that students would "know how to write a signature of their own to identify themselves, and have the ability to sign a legal document, check or voter-registration form."

But this policy change is actually more beneficial for the students than school officials appear to realize. Learning how to write cursive isn't just useful for its own sake - as valuable as it is to be able to sign one's own name.

As the city Department of Education rightly pointed out, "evidence reveals an advantage for handwriting using pen and paper over keyboarding for students in grades 2 to 6 for amount written, rate of word writing, and number of ideas expressed."

In other words: Kids were better at processing information when doing so by handwriting as opposed to typing.

In addition, scientific research (and common sense) indicates learning how to write cursive helps the development of motor skills. Writing for Psychology Today, Dr. William Klemm explains, "The benefits to brain development are similar to what you get with learning to play a musical instrument."

These benefits apply to writing more generally and cursive specifically, according to Klemm.

That's because in "cursive writing, compared to printing . . . the movement tasks are more demanding, the letters are less stereotypical and the visual-recognition requirements create a broader repertoire of letter representation."

Yes, kids could use a computer and type more legibly than they can write. But the end product is just as important as the lesson itself. Test prep and academic pressure are increasingly crowding out previously essential classes like music, art and physical education. Recess has been shortened considerably for children compared to their parents' generation, as has instruction in subjects not considered "core curriculum."

There's a larger point here: Cursive writing is far from an exception. Teachers and school administrators have learned both through studies and their own experience that, for example, the erosion of recess time has negative effects on student behavior and performance, never mind happiness. Activities tossed overboard for their perceived frivolity turned out to have a point.

Reverting to older methods of education isn't the "hipsterization" of the classroom. Instead, it's educators merely casting off prior poorly researched and executed trends in education.

The New York City Department of Education might have taken only a small step in that reversion with its decision to restart cursive instruction, but parents should cheer it nonetheless. Perhaps it's the beginning of a curriculum counterrevolution that will restore a sense of balance to children's education.

And if not, well - at least future Treasury secretaries from New York will be able to sign our currency with pride.
Bethany Mandel, a stay-at-home mom, is a senior contributor to The Federalist.

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Why we should teach cursive writing to all kids

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When Jack Lew was nominated to be Treasury secretary in 2013, President Barack Obama joked that as a condition of the appointment, Lew would have to learn to sign his name more legibly. The secretary's signature, after all, was going to appear on US currency. Lew, a New Yorker, was a city public-school student.

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C- posted November 26, 2012, updated August ,2018.
R- yes it it discusses the advantages, no counter arguement.
A- by the 241 team, form a .edu website and mainly trustworthy site because of the .edu.
A- No spelling errors
P- To persuade you because in the article it only lists the benefits.

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C- July 22, 2013, no yet updated.
R- Yes, it agrees with my claim, but it has a brief counter claim.
A- Cindy Long, from naToday.org, Mainly a reputable source because it is a .gov
A- 2 grammar mistakes, spelling is good.
P- It is to inform you, because they have both claim and counter claim, even though they have the same claim.

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Just like summertime temperatures, the cursive debate is heating up - especially now that the newly established Common Core standards don't include the curly, looped handwriting style children have learned in penmanship classes for generations.

In response, some state legislatures are seeking to make it compulsory, like North Carolina where the senate passed a bill to make cursive a requirement in public schools. Supporters of the "Back to Basics" legislation, which passed 37-8 and also requires North Carolina students to memorize multiplication tables, said that cursive is important to know even in the age of keyboards and digital devices.

"[Students] have the right to know the same types of things we knew when we were coming along," Republican Sen. Austin Allran, the bill's sponsor, told the Charlotte Observer.

Those who argue for cursive insist that it teaches fine motor skills, is faster and more efficient than printed handwriting, and that it enhances the creative process and has other cognitive benefits. In addition, many historical documents will be illegible if people can't read in cursive.

"Cursive writing is a long-held cultural tradition in this country and should continue to be taught; not just for the sake of tradition, but also to preserve the history of our nation," Jimmy Bryant, director of archives and special collections at the University of Central Arkansas, told The New York Times.

Opponents say it's time to let cursive be written into the pages of history.

"As we have done with the abacus and the slide rule, it is time to retire the teaching of cursive. The writing is on the wall," Morgan Polikoff, an assistant education professor at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education, argued in a New York Times opinion piece.

While the topic is polarizing, there are some people who fall into the middle, like Kate Gladstone, a handwriting expert and educator quoted on the topic of handwriting in publications as diverse as The New York Times to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Gladstone believes that cursive should be taught in our schools - but only to be read, not written.

"Reading cursive can be taught in just 30 to 60 minutes - even to five- or six-year-olds, once they read ordinary print," Gladstone says. "Writing cursive, however, takes much, much more time and effort to master, even sketchily."

Should educators take the time to teach children how to first draw and eventually to write these elaborate letters when there is so much more substantive curriculum? Gladstone says no because it's not a worthwhile return on the investment of time and energy.

What's more, most adults abandon cursive writing for a hybrid of mostly print letters joined occasionally in a cursive style. In 2012, handwriting teachers were surveyed at a conference hosted by Zaner-Bloser, a publisher of cursive textbooks. Only 37 percent wrote in cursive; another 8 percent printed. The majority, 55 percent, wrote a hybrid: some elements resembling print-writing, others resembling cursive.

"When even most handwriting teachers give up cursive, why would anyone else continue to exalt it?" Gladstone asks.

Handwriting matters, she says, and offers fine motor skills and cognitive benefits whether in cursive or not. But she insists that children should be taught efficient handwriting, which research shows is most legible and efficient when it combines print, or manuscript, and cursive letters.

Cursive isn't required for legal documents, either. In state and federal law, Gladtone says, cursive signatures have no special legal validity over any other kind.

So is the writing on the wall for cursive? Neatoday.org asked its Facebook fans - K-12 educators from all over the country. We got an overwhelming response - almost 800 comments. The verdict? Keep cursive writing in schools. Here's what some of our fans had to say:

Get the high stakes testing out of elementary schools, and we'll have time to teach cursive writing again!

The Constitution of the United States is written in cursive. Think about that. I make my kids at least learn to read cursive.

Not everyone has a computer and printer.

Absolutely teach cursive. Teach everything possible, exercise those brains, grow neurons, every little bit of knowledge helps us THINK!

Handwriting is much more personal and I still prefer it on cards and in mailed letters. I use it for people I really care about on special occasions and other appropriate times.That being said, most of my day-to-day communication, including this post, is on a laptop.

For most of us, cursive is faster than printing. Speed is often the difference between getting the facts down correctly during note-taking, and trying to figure out or remember what the first part of the note referred to. Since note-taking remains part of the academic experience, and notes are often shared/compared, it's nice to have consistency for readability-especially for one's self.

I'm glad I learned cursive and know how to teach it. It is much faster for taking notes in a class and you can write really classy thank you notes. Manuscript is important, too, for clarity in filling out forms. Learn both and don't always rely on a keyboard.

Let us know what you think in the comments below or visit facebook.com/neatoday.

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Does Cursive Need to Be Taught in the Digital Age? - NEA Today

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Just like summertime temperatures, the cursive debate is heating up - especially now that the newly established Common Core standards don't include the curly, looped handwriting style children have learned in penmanship classes for generations. In response, some state legislatures are seeking to make it compulsory, like North Carolina where the senate passed a bill to make cursive a requirement in public schools.

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C- October 17, 2016, not revised.
R- It has both side of the argument and does not take a side.
A- By Liana Heitin, PBS, reputable site because it is a familiar kids information site.
P- This is to inform you because it is not taking a side it is only discussing the pros and the cons.

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Why don't the common-core standards include cursive writing?

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Should schools teach cursive handwriting? The question is a polarizing one in the K-12 education world.