Background information:

When I was growing up, cursive writing was introduced as 'the new big thing' during my second last year of Primary School.  That was 1987, I was 10 years old.  We spent two years in which every teacher was adamant that every student had to learn how to write using cursive and writing in print was banned. 

When I began Secondary School, at the age of 12, 1989, the interest in cursive had died down and teachers said students could choose to write using either print or cursive - either way was fine. 

By 1991 cursive writing was being discouraged by most teachers as print was much clearer and more legible.  From 1990 I never wrote in cursive again.  About 20% of people I know write in full cursive, about 30% write in print, and about 50% write using a combination of the two (eg. when they write quickly they join some but not all letters).  Mind you, this is only a rough estimate and I don't really go around analysing my friends'/family members' handwriting.

Just the other day, a coworker of mine write some comments about one students writing.  That student spent 15min asking me questions because she couldn't read my coworkers handwriting.  He writes in cursive.  

I feel that it is best that no-one write in cursive because it is unclear and difficult to read at the best of times, and now that English is used internationally, it is even more important to write as clearly and as legibly as possible.  The only advantage of cursive is that you can write faster - but if you're in a hurry, you can type even faster still.  If you need to use handwriting, use print.

I fully agree that, in adulthood, most people use a combination of both print and cursive writing and that the only real advantage of using cursive writing is that it enables one to write faster - but that comes at a cost, i.e., the faster you write, the more the quality of your handwriting deteriorates. 

I'm now very interested to find out how primary schools in the U.K. tackle the business of teaching cursive writing to very young children.  Does anyone know of any research which either advocates or condemns the practice of teaching five-year olds to practise cursive writing?  

I was dismayed to find that the primary school my own five-year old son attends is really pushing for children in Year One to learn cursive writing, when they have only just learned to write letters in print format.  My son can now print a letter "e" beautifully but - for example - when he copies a series of "e"s he reads them as a pattern and they end up looking like loops.  It doesn't make sense to me that children are expected to adapt to a different style of writing when they've barely had time to learn how to print.

The head teacher at my son's school has defended the school's policy of forcing five-year olds to practise cursive writing, but I really want to challenge this as I don't feel it to be child-centred and I know not all primary schools adhere to such a policy.

I went to school in Kuala Lumpur around the 1970s. We go to Year 1 in primary school at age 6+, and soon had to copy letters in cursive and we were all expected to use it. Some of us never fully used it, and you weren't penalised if you didn't use cursive in secondary school.

I don't write by hand a lot these days, and for short comments or note, I quite often join up some letters and not others. I also generally stopped using the cursive capital letters. I have children in primary and secondary schools in Singapore now, and as far as I can see cursive handwriting is not taught at all. My daughter in Year 6 and my younger son in Year 4 both just use print writing. My elder son in Year 10 taught himself some cursive but has some idiosyncratic flourishes that I don't think makes for easy reading. I think it is a shame that handwriting is neglected in schools in Singapore.

It's rather unusual to find full cursive these days, and when you see it it's almost certainly that the writer is an older person (say 50 and above).

I use as many different recordings of English speakers - not just native speakers - as I can, because I believe it gives the students the skills to understand English as a global language. For similar reasons, I believe students should be able to recognise handwriting in order to thrive in academic or business situations. I think we are seriously underestimating the learner by only teaching in print. Think how many fonts people use on their computers. We learn very fast. Teachers should be aware that there are specific learning difficulties which require the learner to learn two forms of a letter as separate letters (like a computer would - see how Captcha works when you post a comment) rather than connecting them, but this should not stop them teaching. (Japanese students are still learning their own ideographs at high school; and in general enjoy playing with words and letters. Cursive writing would stimulate many to learn English.)

One thing I am very wary about though is the kind of teaching that the previous writer wrote about the five-year-old. Meaningless lines of e's may be okay for a five year old - I do not know this age well, but I imagine it is a bit late as a motor skill - but I feel it is inappropriate for an older learner. Start out with the students' names, and then let them experiment.

One other point, I think in England that, like phonics, handwriting is not as strictly taught as it is in North America. I like the flavor and personality this allows the student to develop. I like to recognise who I am getting letters from by the handwriting on the envelope. In Japanese junior high schools, students are taught to write print letters in a standard stroke order as is required for their syllabaries and ideographs. This is unnecessary in English. Let students understand that the final outcome is more important than the means, and maybe they will begin to understand many things about English as a language, and experiment with it more.

The main times I can think of in which people need to write quickly include:

• When writing a book, essay, assignment, newspaper article, etc, with a deadline.
• When writing business/legal/formal documents.
• When transcribing speech as it happens (eg. taking records in a court of law).
• When taking notes in a lecture.

In the first 2 we usually use a computer.

The 3rd is a specialist position and the people who do it use shorthand/stenography.

In the last we are writing to ourself, so it doesn't need to be clear.