Starbucks and Campaign for Cursive Unite

Check out what our Campaign for Cursive and Starbucks did...
http://www.onlineprnews.com/news/459866-1391722869-starbucks-and-campaign-for-cursive-unite.html

Proof that Learning Cursive Makes You Smarter

Cursive Research

Two articles contributed by Iris Hatfield.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/learning-cursive-in-the-first-grade-helps-students

Learning Cursive in the First Grade Helps Students

Released: 9/16/2013 5:35 AM EDT
Source Newsroom: Universite de Montreal

more news from this source

Newswise — By 2014, 45 American states will stop teaching cursive writing in favour of keyboard proficiency. In Québec, there are no plans for the moment to abandon this type of writing. “Teaching and daily use of handwriting are essential, if only to avoid being at the mercy of technology,” says Professor Isabelle Montésinos-Gelet at the University of Montreal’s Faculty of Education. Although she welcomes the idea of young people learning to handle a computer keyboard, she believes it should be introduced in the school curriculum when students are already proficient in one style of writing: print (separate letters) or cursive (joined letters).

“Here, as in many countries, the general approach to teaching writing is based on tradition rather than on educational research that has proven benefits,” says the professor.
For generations, most Québec students learn to print in the first grade and write cursive in the second. "This was decided at a time when the cognitive aspects of the writing process and the important role of graphic-motor skills in learning how to write were unknown,” says the researcher, who conducted a study on the subject: Which is better, print or cursive? What form of writing instruction is more beneficial for students?

The study, conducted in collaboration with Professors Marie-France Morin, Université de Sherbrooke, and Natalie Lavoie, Université du Québec à Rimouski Sherbrooke, with 718 Québec students and teachers in 54 second grade classrooms, demonstrates the influence of three handwriting teaching methods (print, cursive, or print and cursive) on the acquisition of graphic-motor skills (speed and quality of writing), spelling, and text construction. The results, published in 2012 in the journal Language and Literacy, show that students who learned cursive benefited the most. In particular, they had better results in spelling and syntax. "These two aspects are essential elements that contribute to the development of writing skills at the primary level," says Montésinos-Gelet.

Worst approach: the print-cursive method
"Whether they learn print or cursive, children are better off when one type of writing is taught," she says. "Teaching both types does not promote the acquisition of automatic motor movements, which play an important role in spelling and text construction."

The data show that more than 50% of the variance in writing quality among second-grade students is associated with graphic-motor skills. This number hardly surprises the researcher. "If children write too slowly, they cannot remember all their ideas; they forget them before they can write them down," she explains. "Hence the importance of making motor movements automatic so they do not mobilize all the children's resources."

The transition to cursive writing in the second grade hinders this automatization. The findings of her research indicate that writing skills improve in terms of speed and legibility by the end of the year whatever the type of writing. On the other hand, students who learned printing in the first grade and then began cursive writing in the second grade made the least progress in spelling. The print-cursive method did not help with memory consolidation of word spelling.

At the beginning of elementary school, children experience a growth in spelling that allows them to spell many words, somewhat like the language development phase at around two or three years. If they have to change writing styles at this moment, it impedes their memorization by requiring more brainwork," says Montésinos-Gelet.

In her opinion, teaching cursive writing leads to the best results in comparison to the other two methods. “We observed among these students an increase in syntactic skills, unlike those who only learned to print or who learned both. The performance of these students remained stable throughout the school year.”

Avoiding “backwards” letters
Learning to write in cursive also has the advantage of encouraging students to respect linguistic constraints from the outset. “Children who learn to print tend to treat letters like pictures and often write them backwards." This approach slows down the integration of what specialists call "stroke grammar,” i.e., the sequencing of gestures to produce optimal letters.

When students write directly in cursive, they are forced to follow a kind of path determined by the direction of the strokes. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to join the letters,” says Montésinos-Gelet. “So, there are no backwards letters.”

Furthermore, children who write in cursive do not at all have the problem of spacing between letters and words. “They understand the concept of word more quickly than the others do and therefore tend to have better graphic-motor skills related to language processing, which helps them in terms of syntax and spelling,” says the researcher.

Notes for media
This text was translated from a document originally published in French by Dominique Nancy. Professor Montésinos-Gelet is available for interview from noon to 4 pm Monday September 16 and Thursday September 19. She is not in a position to participate in radio or television broadcasts in English.

http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-to-learn-cursive-2013-10

Here's Proof That Learning Cursive Makes You Smarter

Amanda Macias Oct. 8, 2013, 11:16 AM 1,914 1

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Children practicing cursive handwriting

When was the last time you wrote in cursive? Fifty-eight years ago The Saturday Evening Post was already calling America a "nation of scrawlers."

Now, the recently established Common Core State Standards, the standardized education benchmarks for U.S. public schools, omits cursive as a graduation requirement. Indiana and Hawaii waved goodbye to cursive in 2011 and welcomed keyboarding classes to their curricula.

Still, states like California, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky and Massachusetts have kept cursive instruction in place or allowed individual school districts to decide. 

The technique has many defenders, including The National Association of State Boards of Education, which recently compiled evidence that learning cursive makes you smarter.

Below evidence from a NASBE policy brief:

·         Cognitive and Motor Skills Development: Because handwriting is a complex skill that involves both cognitive and fine motor skills, direct instruction is required to learn handwriting (it is not good enough to just give a workbook to students and hope for the best). However, the result of good instruction is that students are benefited both in their cognitive development and in developing motor skills.

·         Literacy Development: Handwriting is a foundational skill that can influence students’ reading, writing, language use, and critical thinking. Students without consistent exposure to handwriting are more likely to have problems retrieving letters from memory; spelling accurately; extracting meaning from text or lecture; and interpreting the context of words and phrases.

·         Brain Development: The sequential hand movements used in handwriting activate the regions of the brain associated with thinking, short-term memory, and language. In addition, according to Virginia Berninger, Ph.D., professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, cursive in particular is linked with brain functions around self-regulation and mental organization. “Cursive helps you connect things,” Dr. Berninger said in an interview.

·         Memory: The act of handwriting helps students (and adults) retain information more effectively than when keyboarding, mostly likely because handwriting involves more complex motor functions and takes a bit longer. One study comparing students who took notes by hand versus classmates who took notes by computer found that the hand writers exhibited better comprehension of the content and were more attentive and involved during the class discussions.

·         Written Expression: Elementary-age students who wrote compositions by hand rather than by keyboarding, one researcher found, wrote faster, wrote longer pieces, and expressed more ideas.

·         Learning Disabilities: Handwriting instruction can be especially valuable to many students with disabilities. As one professor of occupational therapy has written, “One of the first things educators can do to ensure that students with special needs develop good writing skills, besides teaching them spelling and basic writing processes, is to provide them with formal handwriting instruction.” Students with learning disabilities are more likely to need extra support to improve their handwriting, but improved handwriting can both help improve academic outcomes and help in fine motor skill development.

 And you never know when cursive will be useful.

For instance, the technique proved crucial in this year's Florida v. George Zimmerman murder trial. Later acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman's defense team attempted to discredit Martin's childhood friend's testimony. Rachel Jeantel's was forced to admit she could not read the cursive letter she wrote to Martin's parents, bringing into question if she could truly write in cursive.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-to-learn-cursive-2013-10#ixzz2hFMRPv7n

Dr. David Sortino in his article Brain research and cursive writing stated “I discovered that cursive writing was an excellent kinesthetic exercise which grounded my students’ energies, many of which had severe behavioral problems.

Cursive writing has proved to even support higher SAT scores. That is, the College Board found that students who wrote in cursive for the essay portion of the SAT scored slightly higher than those who printed, which experts believe is because the speed and efficiency of writing in cursive allowed the students to focus on the cohesion of ideas in their essays through the mirror of the connected cursive stroke.

More importantly, after about six months, the students were showing one to two years academic growth in word attack, reading fluency and reading comprehension as defined by popular achievement tests.

Shadmehr and Holcomb of Johns Hopkins University published a study in Science magazine showing that their subjects’ brains actually changed in reaction to physical instruction such as cursive handwriting lessons. The researchers provided PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans as evidence of these changes in brain structure. In addition, they also demonstrated that these changes resulted in an almost immediate improvement in fluency, which led to later development of neural pathways. As a result of practicing these handwriting motor skills, the researchers found that acquired knowledge becomes more stable.”

Memory Medic

How to improve everyday memory.

by William Klemm, D.V.M., Ph.D.

What Learning Cursive Does for Your Brain

Cursive Writing Makes Kids Smarter

Published on March 14, 2013 by William R. Klemm, D.V.M, Ph.D. in Memory Medic

“… scientists are discovering that learning cursive is an important tool for cognitive development, particularly in training the brain to learn “functional specialization,”[2] that is capacity for optimal efficiency. In the case of learning cursive writing, the brain develops functional specialization that integrates both sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of brain become co-activated during learning of cursive writing of pseudo-letters, as opposed to typing or just visual practice.

There is spill-over benefit for thinking skills used in reading and writing. To write legible cursive, fine motor control is needed over the fingers. Students have to pay attention and think about what and how they are doing it. They have to practice. Brain imaging studies show that cursive activates areas of the brain that do not participate in keyboarding.

In learning to write by hand, even if it is just printing, a child’s brain must:

• Locate each stroke relative to other strokes.
• Learn and remember appropriate size, slant of global form, and feature detail characteristic of each letter.
• Develop categorization skills.

Cursive writing, compared to printing, is even more beneficial because the movement tasks are more demanding, the letters are less stereotypical, and the visual recognition requirements create a broader repertoire of letter representation. Cursive is also faster and more likely to engage students by providing a better sense of personal style and ownership.

Other research highlights the hand's unique relationship with the brain when it comes to composing thoughts and ideas. Virginia Berninger, a professor at the University of Washington, reported her study of children in grades two, four and six that revealed they wrote more words, faster, and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand versus with a keyboard.[4]

There is a whole field of research known as “haptics,” which includes the interactions of touch, hand movements, and brain function.[5] Cursive writing helps train the brain to integrate visual, and tactile information, and fine motor dexterity.”

From: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201303/what-learning-cursive-does-your-brain

Penmanship/cursive research

Lampooned by Stephen Colbert

After Colbert made light of Campaign for Cursive and AHAF's printed logo, we received several emails, asking for a C4C T-shirt. As a result, we will be putting some on sale soon. Stand by for a link!

Meanwhile, here's the Colbert segment

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/430964/december-04-2013/tip-wag---campaign-for-cursive---the-rnc

Fahrney's Pens is promoting cursive with...

It's Letter to Santa contest:
http://www.fahrneyspens.com/content--name-Letter-to-Santa-Contest

Spread the word to all the kids you know.

If you blinked, you missed it...

Tonight I had a 3 minute debate on Chicago’s Fox News affiliate, with Kate Gladstone on the other side. Those three minutes were cut about in half, but that's showbiz! 

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/24014516/handwriting-debate-should-cursive-be-taught-in-school

Killing Cursive...

Excellent article in HuffPost. Recommended reading:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-j-leclerc/killing-cursive-is-killin_b_4261572.html

Common Core Curriculum

By Edda Manley

This is the first year the Common Core Curriculum is being "transitioned" into the school system across the land. Having studied the phenomenon of the current generations having significantly different outlooks on things I began to ponder the "Common Core Curriculum".

The generations who are now having children, Gen X and Y are noted for feeling "special and unique".

The generation who developed and had input into forming the Common Core Curriculum are from the Boomer Generation where conformity and adhering to rules set by others was more highly valued.

The word "Common" of course can have several meanings: common as in ordinary or common as in an established togetherness. The children and parents of the younger generations are not very interested in being perceived as being common/ordinary. There is much in the media today encouraging everyone to be innovative and get inspired to lead in new thinking, the opposite of common as in established togetherness.

"Core" basically is another way of expressing a central, basic or even foundational aspect. When we consider the body, personal trainers will tell their clients that the core of the body needs to be strong the support the rest of the frame. There is a lot of body surrounding the "core" including organs, nerves, veins and arteries - all very important to a persons' well being. 

The core of an apple has the initial seed around which the delicious flesh of the apple is grown. In the education system, the powers that be have decided that the "core" which they define should be 85% of the curriculum.  States are permitted to have some leeway over a full 15% of what gets taught. So in other words, the people who have developed the Common Core Curriculum feel they know what 85% of the education should be for each student. The individual teachers who are actually implementing the curriculum and working with the students on a daily basis can only adjust what is taught by 15%. To me this seems to be reverse of what nature is showing us. The core of an apple is certainly not the majority of the fruit, and similarly the core muscles of our body don't comprise the majority of our body.

In the past, the education system that served students well for centuries had a solid foundation of reading, writing and arithmetic. On top of this "core" more information was added and our societies progressed in amazing ways with inventions from the printing press to iPads.

Only time will tell what kind of fruit the curriculum of today will yield.

Proof that learning cursive makes you smarter

http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-to-learn-cursive-2013-10

INTELLIGENCE AND THE LOST ART OF CURSIVE WRITING

By Dr. David Sortino

           Most children are taught to print the first few years of grade school and, depending on the school, either they stay with printing throughout their school careers or they are also taught cursive, usually in second or third grade.

Is learning cursive still important in an age of texting and email?

Most definitely, yes. I particularly side with those who recommend teaching cursive handwriting as a strategy to stimulate brain synchronicity. That is, cursive handwriting helps coordinate the right side of the brain - or visual side - with the left side - or verbal side - of the brain. According to some researchers, the debate is a little like comparing the act of printing versus cursive to painting by numbers versus the flowing rhythmic brush strokes of a "true artist."

        For example, Rand Nelson of Peterson Directed Handwriting believes when children are exposed to cursive handwriting, changes occur in their brains

which allow a child to overcome motor challenges. He says, "the act of physically gripping a pen or pencil and practicing the swirls, curls and connections of cursive handwriting activates parts of the brain that lead to increased language fluency."

        Moreover, the work of Iris Hatfield, creator of the New American Cursive Program, also believes in the connection between cursive writing and brain development as a powerful tool in stimulating intelligence and language fluency.  The movement of writing cursive letters helps build pathways in the brain while improving mental effectiveness," she said. "And, this increased effectiveness may continue throughout the child's academic career."

     Further, Shadmehr and Holcomb of Johns Hopkins University published a study in Science Magazine showing that their subjects' brains actually changed in reaction to physical instruction such as cursive handwriting lessons. The researchers provided PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans as evidence of these changes in brain structure. In addition, they also demonstrated that these changes resulted in an "almost immediate improvement in fluency," which led to later development of neural pathways.  In addition, as a result of practicing these handwriting motor skills, the researchers found that acquired knowledge becomes more stable.

            There are the psychosocial benefits as well. According to author, Mathew Geiger, "As our brains learn to connect our inner worlds to the external universe, we begin to recognize abstract ideas like awareness of others and perception."

Cursive writing (ability) affords us the opportunity to naturally train these fine motor skills by taking advantage of a child's inability to fully control his fingers. This means cursive writing acts as a building block rather than as a stressor, and provides a less strenuous learning experience.

    Parents can be the final deciders as to whether or not to use cursive writing.

You have the research, you have the child.  I encourage you to give it a

try. Go to any school supply store and purchase a wide lined paper pad, appropriate pencils, a white board to copy the alphabet, etc. And then merely support their writing those thank you notes in cursive or sit down with them and practice together. By them a journal and suggest they practice in a daily diary.

It could be quite a learning experience for them and a sharing experience for you.

     David Sortino, a Graton resident, is a psychologist, retired teacher. He is currently director of Educational Strategies, a private consulting company catering to parents and students.E-mail him at davidsortino@comcast.net

http://davidsortino.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/10221/brain-research-and-cursive-writing/

Supportive new research

Learning Cursive in the First Grade Helps Students according to research from the University of Montreal.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/learning-cursive-in-the-first-grade-helps-students