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The Controversy Of Reading And Writing In The Classroom

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The biggest controversy to take place in the world of penmanship is happening right now. The Common Core education standards decided that cursive will no longer be taught in elementary schools.
Reading and writing are fundamental to learning. But as more kids read and write via some sort of computing device i.e. laptop, tablet, and cellphone. How we teach those skills is changing, and one significant change is the decision to teach cursive. When it comes to equipping students with “21st century skills,” typing is in, cursive is out.
According to the Common Core’s mission: “The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. …show more content…

And for most people, writing in cursive is a rare event. Once touted as more efficient than print, typing is more efficient than either form of writing by hand. And as such cursive may seem like an extraneous skill.
Nevertheless, removing cursive from the curriculum has been controversial. Some have argued that learning cursive isn’t simply about learning how to write efficiently. It’s about learning how to write beautifully. It’s about fine motor skills. It’s about expression. And according to a report in The Wall Street Journal last year, there are a number of benefits to cognition and memory that come from writing by hand.
Some fear that if we stop teaching students to write in cursive, they’ll no longer be able to read cursive either, leaving a swath of written materials that will be undecipherable. Arguably, that’s something historians and archeologists have long faced; whether it’s cursive, calligraphy or otherwise, handwriting has changed immensely over the years. And without cursive, how people will be able to sign their names, some argue, pointing to the one place where most adults probably do regularly use cursive. Of course, teaching cursive just so we can all add our personalized squiggle to the bottom of official documents probably isn’t an effective use of class

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