Script writing no longer high priority

MONROE — Gone are the days when second- and third-grade students spent hours mastering the technique needed to create the cursive alphabet and even more time learning to string those letters together to form words and sentences.

Script writing is not a part of the common core curriculum, which is being implemented in Louisiana and many states across the country. In Louisiana, the state Department of Education has left it up to individual school districts to decide whether to devote instructional time to script writing.

Several states, including California, Georgia and Massachusetts, have added a cursive requirement to the national standards. Most others have left it optional.

According to the Louisiana Department of Education, “the Common Core State Standards do not mandate the teaching of cursive handwriting. In Louisiana, districts will be empowered to make the choice to continue teaching cursive handwriting.”

Local school districts say because of an increased demand on a finite amount of instructional time, the minutes that would have been spent teaching cursive writing have been reallocated in favor of more relevant skills like keyboarding.

“There is much less of an emphasis put on cursive writing than there used to be,” J.S. Clark curriculum coordinator Susan Cole said. “Time is not our friend when you figure in standardized testing and the new emphasis on student achievement in teacher evaluations. Cursive doesn’t have the importance that it used to.”

Ouachita Parish Schools Elementary Supervisor Ann Davis said although script writing is a skill that is important, in the limited time available, most teachers can’t afford the time to teach it.

“There is so much emphasis now on the common core and everything that it encompasses,” she said. “That kind of trumps all the attention that used to be placed on handwriting.”

Cole said basic script writing, like the skills needed to sign a name on a legal document, will continue to be taught in elementary schools and expanded on in classrooms.

Monroe City Schools Interim Chief Academic Officer Tammye Turpin said teaching handwriting has been incorporated into grading assignments such as grammar and composition.

“It is imbedded in the curriculum,” she said. “They are teaching the writing process as they are teaching them how to write. When you learn how to write a sentence, you will get your instruction on how to write that letter.”

Both districts are considering keyboarding programs to teach students skills necessary to take the standardized tests associated with the common core curriculum.

Beginning in the school year 2014-15, all students in third through 12th grades will be required to take standardized tests on computers.

“Right now our (third-grade) kids are handwriting their answers to those questions, but when the test changes, the students will have to be able to type answers on a computer and to do it with some speed,” Turpin said.

“We are looking for a keyboarding program that is geared to teaching young children, and we are determining how many times a week and what is required to teach them to use a computer,” Davis said. “I think they could learn if we could fit it in the curriculum, but it’s finding time to fit it in the curriculum and getting them to a computer lab a few minutes a day.”

Comments

1) Comment by Get Real - 11/02/2013

LOL....tradewinn I could not have said it better.

2) Comment by teacherguy - 11/02/2013

I must confess...when I was in 10th grade Civics (1986), an old Black teacher of mine, Mr. Davis, stopped us in the middle of class and said these words, "Boys, if you don't listen to anything else I have taught you this year, listen to this." He then pointed his skinny crooked finger at us and said, "Learn how to type! You will need it in college (for papers), it could save your life in the military (most soldiers weren't able to type, so typists were put at desk jobs), and it looks like with all these computers coming up...you won't be able to fix a car, or dig a ditch, without being able to use a computer." He was prophetic, to say the least. Over 19 years of teaching, I have found kids need to type more than ever...not only for standardized testing! There is a small issue of funding to get enough keyboarding resources to students and then to keep it in good working order over time. No matter how hard one tries to keep students from destroying things...text books, graffiti, constant hard use ALL day, takes its toll and creates new expenses on these resources even after initial purchase.

3) Comment by RUSerious - 11/02/2013

@jwarren, could not have said it better myself. We are so foucsed on passing tests that we have forsaken educating our young. We will continue to fall behind the world as we are not interested in creating educated children just ones that get us the dollar. Sad indeed.

4) Comment by tradewinns - 11/02/2013

they already cannot perform math, nor spell, manners went away years ago. so what the heck, they'll do ok till the power fails then they will be useless.

5) Comment by jwarren - 11/02/2013

One could argue that cursive writing is outmoded. However, this change is not being brought about following reasoned discussion, but rather as an unintended consequence of high stakes on line testing. That is not the best way to make such decisions There is also a story here about unfunded mandates not being told. Tens or perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent by school districts simply to get enough computers and bandwidth to support the expanded on line testing. This is not being done as part of plans to expand technology in schools in a meaningful way, but simply to meet the unfunded requirement for testing. Again, decisions are being made as a resulting of the testing program.