Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gazette
When Francesca Malloy, of the Village of Woodbury, discovered that her 12-year-old grandson couldn’t read her letters on his own since he never learned cursive, she was in disbelief. “I was so shocked,” Malloy said. “I don’t know I couldn’t get over that.” That’s when the idea hit her: why not create something to help
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This is a noble effort. I spent 1960-1968 in grade school, and for, what, four years? Five years? that included handwriting classes. I was left-handed, which made cursive difficult, and I well remember spending hours trying to copy out each letter hundreds of times, rather as in Ms. Mallory’s book, but on pages and pages of Big Chief tablets. I’m very pleased that I can still read cursive with ease, but I reverted to printing as soon as I was able to. I’m not sure many kids today would be willing to learn to write cursive unless they are forced to, and I’m not sure Ms. Mallory’s book offers enough repetitions to learn to write cursive easily, but it might make it possible for kids to read it.
I would prefer that kids be required to learn touch typing. That would be very useful for anyone who uses keyboards for typing documents instead of just using a phone or iPad. I took a year of touch typing in high school, and I can still type 40 words per minute. I used to wish I’d learned Gregg shorthand in high school—as a writer and teacher that would have been useful. Now, however, that day has passed. I don’t need it anymore. Indeed, I don’t recall meeting anyone in my life who could still write in shorthand. I would also like to be able to read old Gothic type like that used in old German books. But I wouldn’t use it much. While we are at it, I wish I spoke more languages.