Termination of the teaching of the Continuous Cursive Handwriting in Schools

Abstract

Handwriting is a skill that is a requirement for all individuals, however, there is a deep and decisive debate about whether or not the cursive handwriting is necessary in this era of technological innovations. While the necessity of compulsory cursive handwriting education is generally addressed by educators and politicians, there is no consensus on it, and the opinions of the people with interest or concern in education (e.g. teachers, students and parents) are not so often asked. For this reason, the aim of this study is to reveal the views of teachers, students and parents on the cursive handwriting education. 57 classroom teachers, 230 primary school fourth grade students and 14 parents participated in the study from four public primary schools in Ankara. Data were collected using ‘Personal Information Form’, ‘Cursive Handwriting Education Attitude Scale’, ‘Parent Questionnaire’ and ‘Student Questionnaire’. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics techniques and qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis. According to the findings of the study, teachers and parents are not satisfied with the use of cursive handwriting. While teachers indicated that they would prefer print letters instruction if they had given a chance to choose.  Parents affirmed that they could not give support to their children during their writing education. On the other hand, most of the students stated that they had difficulty in reading even their own handwritings, although most of them declared that they like to write with the cursive handwriting.