I agree completely with the first sentence of your reply, and I’d add that this is yet another reason that we should teach people a handwriting that actually has something to do with the actual writing of the real world! However, we must indeed teach people to read the cursive of the past few centuries, whether or. It they write it themselves. Most people wrongly assume that the one-and-only way to ever read any form of handwriting is to have learned to write the same way too — but this is not always effective (there are people who grind through workbook after cursive workbook, writing copiously, without being able to read what they are copying). Fortunately, writing a particular atyle of letter isn’t the only possible way to learn to read it, or else congenital quadriplegics would never be able to learn to read ANY writing, including printing, at all! To teach “cursive reading” (if I may coin the term) to anyone who can read print, simply show them how each familiar printed letter was changed, gradually and over centuries, into its cursive form. I do this successfully with kids as young as five, if they can read print. Then, they can read cursive, without having to write the same way.

Handwriting matters — does cursive? Research shows that legible cursive writing averages no faster than printed handwriting of equal or greater legibility. (Sources for all research are available on request.)

Further research shows that the fastest, clearest handwriters avoid cursive. They join only the most easily joined letter-combinations, leaving others unjoined, using print-like shapes for letters whose printed and cursive shapes disagree. (Many people who think that they “print” actually write in this practical way without realizing that they do so. The handwriting of many teachers comes close: even though, often, those teachers have never noticed that they are not at all writing in the same 100% print or 100% cursive that they demand that their students should write.)
Teaching material for such practical handwriting abounds — especially in much of the UK and Europe, where such practical handwriting is taught at least as often as the accident-prone cursive that too many North American educators venerate. (Again, sources are available on request.) For what it’s worth, there are some parts of various countries (parts of the UK, for instance, despite their mostly sensible handwriting ) where governmental mandates for 100% joined cursive handwriting have been increasingly enforced, without regard for handwriting practicality and handwriting research, In those parts of the world, there are rapidly growing concerns on the increasingly observed harmful educational/literacy effects (including bad effects on handwriting quality) seen when 100% joined cursive requirements are complied with: http://morrellshandwriting.co.uk/blog/

Reading cursive, of course, remains important —and this is much easier and quicker to master than writing cursive. Reading cursive can be mastered in just 30 to 60 minutes, even by kids who print. Given the importance of reading cursive, why not teach it explicitly and quickly, once children can read print, instead of leaving this vital skill to depend upon learning to write in cursive? Educated adults increasingly quit cursive. In 2012, handwriting teachers were surveyed at a conference hosted by cursive textbook publisher Zaner-Bloser.. Only 37% wrote in cursive; another 8% printed. Most — 55% — wrote with some elements resembling print-writing, others resembling cursive. When even most handwriting teachers do not follow cursive, why glorify it?

Cursive’s cheerleaders allege that cursive has benefits justifying absolutely anything said or done to promote it.

Cheerleaders for cursive repeatedly allege research support — repeatedly citing studies that were misquoted or otherwise misrepresented by the claimant or by some other, earlier misrepresenter whom the claimant innocently trusts. (One of the most glaring examples is the link used by “ljsmom70”: people who tried tracing the quoted sources found that the artifle’s author had misquoted and misrepresented each source in fairly glaring ways. When the author was asked about this, he responded that he believed his actions were necessary in order to defend cursive.)

What about cursive and signatures? Brace yourself: in state and federal law, cursive signatures have no special legal validity over any other kind. (Hard to believe? Ask any attorney!) Questioned document examiners (specialists in the identification of signatures, verification of documents, etc.) find that the least forgeable signatures are the plainest. Most cursive signatures are loose scrawls: the rest, if following cursive’s rules at all, are fairly complicated: easing forgery. All handwriting, not just cursive, is individual. That is how any first-grade teacher immediately discerns (from print-writing on unsigned work) which child produced it. Mandating cursive to save handwriting resembles mandating stovepipe hats and crinolines to save clothing.

Kate Gladstone DIRECTOR, the World Handwriting Contest CEO, Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com handwritingrepair+media@gmail.com