Comments on: QWERTY questions http://parentovershoulder.com/2007/09/26/qwerty-questions/ Kids. Computers. TVs. Phones. Gaming. What's a parent to think? Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:47:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Kate Gladstone http://parentovershoulder.com/2007/09/26/qwerty-questions/comment-page-1/#comment-3 Kate Gladstone Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:34:40 +0000 http://parentovershoulder.com/?p=5#comment-3 I spent some time looking into the SAT issue because I earn my bread teaching handwriting to the people who wash out from the programs "guaranteed to work" — the kids who cry over "Handwriting without Tears" and so on. The Educational Testing Service (ETS) — which develops, administers, and scores the SAT— tells me that the difference between score averages for SAT-takers who used cursive and those who didn't amounts to ... (wait for it ... ) a fraction of one point on this couple-of-thousand-points exam. They believe that, if the difference results from anything but chance, it probably reflects the fact that schools which teach more about reading and math also tend to teach cursive a bit more often than those schools with less strong reading and math courses. (As one ETS staffer put it to me: "If the same schools dropped their cursive courses and started requiring the students to learn to make ice cream instead, the reporters would probably look at that fraction of a point and call it 'proof' that you can increase your SAT score by making ice cream.") So that fraction of a point doesn't look like anywhere near enough of a reason to insist on writing the cursive alphabet at any stage: particularly when you consider the research (JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH, May/June 1998 issue) which established that the fastest and most legible handwriters most often tend to join only some letters, not all of them (they use only the very easiest joins, skipping the rest), and/or to use print-like (not cursive) letter-shapes wherever the printed and cursive form of a letter "disagree." (Article title: "The relationship betwen handwriting style and speed and legibility" — authors: Steven Graham, Naomi Weintraub, and Virginia Berninger.) Judging from this and other similar research (and judging also from my own experiences as a former "incurable handwriting washout" turned handwriting improvement specialist and World Handwriting Contest director), if we want speed with legibility for all handwriters we need to stop making 100%-joined writing the ultimate and obligatory goal of a handwriting program. Kate Gladstone founder, Handwriting Repair handwriting instruction/improvement service director, World Handwriting Contest http://www.learn.to/handwrite I spent some time looking into the SAT issue because I earn my bread teaching handwriting to the people who wash out from the programs “guaranteed to work” — the kids who cry over “Handwriting without Tears” and so on.
The Educational Testing Service (ETS) — which develops, administers, and scores the SAT— tells me that the difference between score averages for SAT-takers who used cursive and those who didn’t amounts to … (wait for it … ) a fraction of one point on this couple-of-thousand-points exam. They believe that, if the difference results from anything but chance, it probably reflects the fact that schools which teach more about reading and math also tend to teach cursive a bit more often than those schools with less strong reading and math courses. (As one ETS staffer put it to me: “If the same schools dropped their cursive courses and started requiring the students to learn to make ice cream instead, the reporters would probably look at that fraction of a point and call it ‘proof’ that you can increase your SAT score by making ice cream.”)
So that fraction of a point doesn’t look like anywhere near enough of a reason to insist on writing the cursive alphabet at any stage: particularly when you consider the research (JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH, May/June 1998 issue) which established that the fastest and most legible handwriters most often tend to join only some letters, not all of them (they use only the very easiest joins, skipping the rest), and/or to use print-like (not cursive) letter-shapes wherever the printed and cursive form of a letter “disagree.” (Article title: “The relationship betwen handwriting style and speed and legibility” — authors: Steven Graham, Naomi Weintraub, and Virginia Berninger.)
Judging from this and other similar research (and judging also from my own experiences as a former “incurable handwriting washout” turned handwriting improvement specialist and World Handwriting Contest director), if we want speed with legibility for all handwriters we need to stop making 100%-joined writing the ultimate and obligatory goal of a handwriting program.
Kate Gladstone
founder, Handwriting Repair handwriting instruction/improvement service
director, World Handwriting Contest
http://www.learn.to/handwrite

]]> By: Joe Selztrb http://parentovershoulder.com/2007/09/26/qwerty-questions/comment-page-1/#comment-2 Joe Selztrb Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:34:05 +0000 http://parentovershoulder.com/?p=5#comment-2 I think you are a wonderful writer. a new fan I think you are a wonderful writer.

a new fan

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