If you've got an ink pen, by all means, write in cursive. But when you get to highschool we tell students to knock it off and write in print because it's less messy, easier to read, and sometimes actually faster if the student hasn't mastered cursive yet. I mean, the idea behind VMC was it was a simpler script to learn before transitioning to full cursive. Especially with, again, modern technologies. Teaching note taking skills is useful, but "taking notes" is essentially a waste of time. It's done as tradition, but it's original purpose was due to the expense of textbooks and the lack of photocopying technology. It's the same school of thought as copying notes off the board. But telling people they need to write fast runs contrary to the need for nuanced thought, or the existence of computers where we can type much faster than anyone can write with cursive. The largest reason always seems to be for speed. You'll find opinion pieces giving other reasons for using cursive, none of which seem to quote their evidence. Some schools and education systems skip it altogether. With modern writing implements cursive is a relic of the past. The historical use of cursive was due to the nature of ink in writing, constant lifting of the quill/inkpen would leave blots of ink on the page which could render the writing unreadable in the worst of cases. So what's the theory behind it? What Year/Grade do schools usually teach proper cursive? Does it make a difference if kids use it in class or not? Even those who don't have deficits in writing tend to avoid using VMC during my assessments, but will use it in class. My totally unscientific analysis of the assessments in my filing cabinet indicates that the kids with reading and writing difficulties seem to have difficulty identifying words where the printed letters diverge from the VMC letters (b, p, k, x, z, etc.) and very few write using VMC (plus the issue of poor letter formation making it hard to see if they have spelled something correctly). A few of my psych assessments have subtests that require students to read and write passages of text. I've been procrastinating today by looking for research behind the use of Victorian modern cursive (VMC), but I haven't found much beyond it making the transition to writing full cursive up to 3-6 months shorter.
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