In 1955 there was public outcry in response to the book, "Why Johnny Can't Read." Its publication caused many parents to question the teaching of the "first R."
Now, more than 40 years later, parents could be posing a similar question: Why can't Johnny write, so that his handwriting is legible? Aren't they teaching penmanship these days?Poor handwriting comes in many forms. It can be jagged or have a squeezed look; it may be disorganized, slanted up or down or zagged without a semblance of uniformity. It may be minuscule or gargantuan. It could be just a scrawl.
Concerns about handwriting raise some other questions: How often do we write and on what occasions? Where are the practice sheets -- the circles and loops -- we used to make? Are computers changing the need and skill for handwriting?
Traditionally, handwriting was valued for its beauty and aesthetic qualities. People have always used at least two kinds of writing -- a formal script for special documents and an informal note-taking style. Writing by hand was an adult skill passed from parent to child, which is why many idiosyncracies of beginning writers often resembled their parents'.
When formal education of children began, the adult method of cursive writing was strongly emphasized as part of the school curriculum.
Additional practice was advocated to make it more fluid and legible. This practice was often a dictatorial set of standards based on Renaissance writing styles: flowing lines and precise circles attained through "push-pull" pencil exercises that often resembled an art form.
Writing has always been difficult for small children with immature motor abilities. In 1913, Edward Johnston developed a script made up of straight lines and circles and parts of circles. This simplified print was called manuscript. The method takes its name from the script forms found in parchment leaves and documents of the Middle Ages. These letter forms, so distinctly legible, were later superseded by Italian cursive forms.
Manuscript writing (or printing as it is often called) was introduced in the United States in the early 1920s and its popularity spread.
The advantages of manuscript writing were ease of learning and legibility. Manuscript writing became a unifying agent where children could more closely copy the teacher's writing. Also the writing resembled the print in beginning readers. Children could use their writing for real purposes such as beginning compositions.
The research studies of the 1920s and '30s endorsed the use of manuscript because of the "expanded amount that youngsters are able to compose, independently."
It seemed that manuscript writing helped with children's early literacy and that was a major thrust in educational reform. "Writing is a hallmark of literacy," wrote Gertrude Hildreth, the leading figure in language arts research in 1936. "The most important quality in handwriting is legibility."
Hildreth pioneered the notion of the psychomotor process and its difficulty for the beginning writer. Her caution was then (as it still is today) that many children are pushed into the small-motor skill of writing with a pencil on specific lines and spaces before they are ready.
But traditions of the cursive "socially accepted" writing died hard. Many classroom teachers resisted the easier manuscript method.
The "change-over" from manuscript to cursive after primary school is an eagerly awaited time for youngsters because many assume that printing is only a beginning level in handwriting and cursive the more advanced stage.
Today, both manuscript and cursive writing are taught in most American schools.
Manuscript is commonly introduced in grades one and two, and cursive writing in grade three.
It is estimated that 90 percent of primary-grade teachers give instruction in manuscript and 79 percent of upper-grade teachers have cursive writing drill and practice.
Repetition seems to be the most applied approach. While this may work with a few children, the majority of students in our schools today are scrawling their way through written assignments, often returned with an attached note, "Please take greater care to turn in your work more neatly!"
It should be noted that many British schools, even for beginning writers, traditionally used only a cursive-type style. This practice is probably the inspiration for the D'Nealian method (a very popular practice in Utah schools), which is made up of curved and slanted characters that are connected instead of individual block or manuscript letters.
John O. Copper, professor at Ohio State University, speculates that handwriting skills have declined because they are not seen as particularly important. "You can have very poor penmanship and it doesn't reflect on you," he says. "A successful professional can have poor handwriting and no one thinks twice about it anymore, unlike math or reading skills."
A medical doctor's scribbles may be legible to the pharmacist, but not the general public. A stylized and illegible signature often is a mark of distinction.
Many teachers have made adjustments in handwriting instruction in recent years, leaning toward a process-oriented method. An administrator in a private school said, "We don't teach writing. We teach children to write."
In some classrooms, the frills and curlicues have been eliminated in beginning cursive instruction. Recently, Zaner Bloser Inc., a leading publisher of handwriting materials, issued revisions with more simplified script. For example, the capital Q is no longer made to look like the number 2 with fancy loops, but more like a printed Q.
Some people espouse teaching only one kind of penmanship in school, claiming that mastering one style is better than having two that are shabby. As far as fluency or speed of writing most people can print as fast as they can write in cursive, and as one graduate student said, "If I want it to be legible, I print!" In reality many writers make modifications and develop a personalized style using both print and cursive.
A convincing reason for mastering one kind of writing -- and that one being manuscript -- is that in society today, printing is almost always required. Take for example, filling out forms, applications and certificates. When a person signs a petition the notice of"please print" is always attached. Passports, driver's licenses and registration for school all require print. Many forms have a row of boxes in which each letter must be placed. Questionnaires and order forms all state plainly the need for print. Some vocations require print; for example, engineers and architects.
Only a person's signature (their "John Henry") is allowed to be scrawled and swiped across a page, legibly or not.
The suggestion to avoid the use of cursive would certainly bring a complaint from those who wonder about reading the "script of our elders" such as their letters and journals. Would banks accept manuscript-written signatures? And will people want that individuality done away with completely? Probably not.
It is easily predictable, however, that the time well come when the average person's handwriting will be largely restricted to his signature, since the amount of handwriting declines steadily with the use of computers. It doesn't take much to imagine laptop computers (and even desk-top ones in schools) replacing the lead pencil and ballpoint pens.
Recently I watched a young man at a workshop with a 3-by-5-inch computer tablet that, when touched by a stylus, took notes in a modified short-style writing much faster than I could with my tablet and pen. I envied the speed but also cynically wondered about his battery supply!
There is no groundswell educational movement to eliminate handwriting from the curriculum. The standards still recognize that legibility is important when jotting down an address or a phone message. Fluency in organizing written notes is required. Clarity in writing a letter or completing a math page is necessary. The ability to read both kinds of writing is expected.
Perhaps the reason Johnny's handwriting can't be read is that no consideration is given to individual development and needs. Do all children at age 8 have the muscular and visual control to begin cursive writing? And do all children, at that age, have the motivation and need to write in this script?
Handwriting and its instruction will face a threat in the coming years. The "write-to-be-read" is becoming less pressing with electronic technology. Just as with Hildreth's concern in the '30s that too early use of typewriters might detract from a child's interest in handwriting, we might take a stand against electronic writing.
But if we do, I think it will be a losing battle!