No need to teach cursive writing

Typically changes to primary education in our country is slow to proceed. To my surprise there’s a push to remove cursive writing from school curriculum and it’s gaining momentum. I’m shocked at the support from even older long time educators.
It turns out in New York State our English Language Arts curriculum only requires legible manuscript either print or cursive. I don’t have a background in education but I do know what kids will need to be successful.
I’ve never been a fan of the current D’Nealian cursive or its predecessors. 

Teaching me in 1st grade that a capital Q was written like a number two was the first time I started to question the intelligence of my teachers. I have never seen anyone write the letter Q like that so it didn’t make sense.
My recommendation would still require penmanship but instead of cursive teach the topic of “script”.  What young minds need to know is that there are a variety of “fonts” that can be used to express feelings beyond just words.
Instead of teaching kids a single cursive writing style, allow them to choose a particular font to practice their penmanship. Teach kids how different fonts should be used for different purposes. A font used for a business letter won’t be the same used on a poster to help find a lost puppy.
I’m all for continuing to teach penmanship but get rid of cursive and let young minds expand. Let them know there are many ways to express what they write. Even if for some reason computers disappeared this wouldn’t be useless information. The knowledge of scripts and how to use appropriate fonts will carry on in future language studies in older grades.

International Support Important to WinPatrol

 

   Support for our friends in Japan

Like everyone we’re anxious to help our friends in Japan deal with their recent tragedy with dignity. Our non-profit of choice is called “ShelterBox”. I first learned about ShelterBox through their affiliation with Rotary International.

“Each box supplies an extended family of up to 10 people with a tent and essential equipment to use while they are displaced or homeless.”

For the rest of this week revenue from the upgrades of WinPatrol PLUS will be donated ShelterBox for relief efforts in Japan. If you’ve been considering upgrading to PLUS this is the week to do it.

You might consider this International Week here at BillP Studios. Our focus is dedicated toward our friends outside the United States.

      

There’s a new version of WinPatrol 2011 available. While I’m still looking at a number of unique problems with WinPatrol the newest version provides a fix to Windows 64 bit users with localized versions of WinPatrol. Until now there was a bug in seeing local text on anyone running Windows 64 Vista or Win7. Downloading the new version isn’t necessary unless you use non-English versions on a Windows 64 bit version. Other fixes are on the way.

Update: 20.0.2011.2 Fixed repeating alert that appears related to Windows 7 SP1 and Auto update monitoring