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In reply to the discussion: Witness responds to suggestion that Trayvon lied before getting shot: ‘That’s real retarded, sir’ [View all]tblue37
(65,666 posts)are excellent students) cannot write or read well in cursive and sometimes cannot do so at all--which is problematic, because I write all my comments on their papers in cursive and all my notes on the blackboard in cursive. Furthermore, my students from China and Korea usually print only in English and either can barely read cursive or cannot read it at all.
In K-12, they don't push cursive any more. The kids "learn" it briefly in third and fourth grade, but they are not required to use it at all past that point, so many end up printing only from that point on--or, of course, just keyboarding most of the time.
I encourage them to practice writing cursive, because that is the best way to learn to read it comfortably--and cursive writing is actually much faster for taking notes or writing essays or exams in class, which they do have to do a lot of in college. Printing involves constantly picking up the pen or pencil between strokes or letters. Each time that is done, it takes just a fraction of a second, but over time, that does add up to slow down their writing and to cramp up their hands!
Furthermore, I warn them that all their older teachers (like me) will write in cursive, so they need to be able to read it to understand what we write.