« April 15, 2007 | Main | April 18, 2007 »
April 17, 2007
The end of cursive writing
Seattle Times (from Minneapolis Star Tribune): In age of computers, is cursive writing cursed?
Under pressure to meet testing standards, teachers are devoting less time to penmanship practice. A 2003 survey of primary teachers by Vanderbilt University found that the average classroom gets fewer than 10 minutes a day of penmanship instruction.While scholars and historians may bemoan the loss of handwritten letters and documents, a leading writing expert says that communication is more important than the form of writing. Kids who have trouble learning cursive might shy away from writing altogether, said Steve Graham, a professor at Vanderbilt University and author of the study on penmanship instruction.
One teacher says cursive is important: She said that learning cursive helps develop fine motor skills. She also believes that proficient cursive writers can express their thoughts more quickly and completely, and there's some evidence to back her up: The students who wrote their SAT essays in cursive scored slightly higher than those who didn't. Tip: Buzzworthy by Brian Chin, who still writes often in cursive
Posted by eubie at 9:47 PM permalink
"Super-rich" numbers grow in 2006
Yahoo (Reuters): Super-rich population surges in 2006: survey. The number of U.S. households with a net worth of more than $5 million, excluding their primary residence, surged 23 percent to surpass one million for the first time in 2006, according to a survey released on Tuesday.
The survey (by Spectrem Group in Chicago) found that U.S. households that are merely wealthy, defined as having assets of more than $500,000 excluding primary residence, rose 9 percent to 15.3 million in 2006 from the year before.
Also PR Newswire:
U.S. Households Worth $5 Million or More Exceed 1 Million for First Time Ever
Posted by eubie at 9:21 PM permalink