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Cursive Writing
Posted By: Sam, on host 209.245.110.141
Date: Monday, May 22, 2000, at 20:28:42

From 1980-1983, I went to school on an American military base in Germany. I was in grades 2-4 in the American school system then. From 1983-1985, we lived in England, and I went to an English school. There, I was in middle school, years 2-3; in the American school system, the equivalent of grades 5-6.

Spending time in both the American and British school systems, I noticed a number of differences in the way kids are taught. One of the most curious was how cursive or script writing and penmanship is taught.

In America, all letters are connected. The letters are rendered with considerations of speed given priority over considerations of neatness. Lower case 'l's are elongated loops. Lower case 'h's have a loop, too, and lower case 'f's are composed of two such elongated loops. The upper spoke of a 'k' is a loop so we can render the whole letter without lifting the pen. Lower case 'r's are these sort of humps, connecting to the left and right letters at the bottom. Lower case 's's look very little like printed lower case 's's. Lower case 'p's and 'b's are connected to the letters that follow them.

When I moved to England and started school in the British system, my record for penmanship, previously among the best in the class, suddenly because among the worst. I had to relearn how to write in cursive. In England, 'l's, 'h's, and 'f's are rendered without any loops at all -- you go up a letter 'l', you trace it exactly back down. No loop in 'k's either.'r's and 's's look just like the print versions. 'r's are connected to the preceding letter but not the following, and 's's aren't connected to either. 'p's and 'b's don't connect to the following letter, either, and there are other disconnections, too.

I don't have any particular purpose for posting this other than the dispensation of this odd information and the open invitation to discuss it further. Brunnen-G, what do they teach in New Zealand?

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