Are reading and writing (penmanship, not creative writing) two separate disciplines?

My husband would be called dyslexic by some, but I think the correct term would be dysgraphic. He loves to read and always read the books assigned for English, but never did the assignments so never passed English.

His spelling shocks me and he often writes his letters back to front. Because of these things he left school at 15 to become a fisherman which was acceptable in my country at the time.

But he reads all the time with no problem he just can't spell. He asks out oldest son how to spell things when trying to write emails.

I spell out words when I read. Don't when I write. So there's that difference, at least.

Writing is a specific mechanical skill. I remember practicing it in school endlessly, even though I could read at a very high level for the grade. If someone could read well, I see no reason why that would translate automatically into being able to write with any skill. Essays written by children are often nearly illegible--if you never had any reason to train past that point, you probably couldn't write a legible Dear John letter.

I know I've read historical descriptions of secretaries that include things like "could write a fair hand" as a virtue, so it may not have been a default.

Well, personally it doesn't even sound that weird to me. We're just used to reading and writing being treated as one. But they're not. And I really don't understand why it's taken for granted someone would teach themselves to write without an actual reason for trying to learn. Some might like the challenge on its own, but most would either need a teacher or a concrete reason to want to know how to write. If you're surrounded by people who write then that gives you a motivation (young children who play around with this on their own will often be doing this, mimicking adults and older children). If you're taught it's an important skill to know, then that's motivation. But if no one makes a deal of you learning to write and you're not surrounded by people who do so, then I don't quite understand the leap that you'd decide it was important enough to, say, take those hours away from the reading you already know how to do and maybe enjoy, and spend them frustrating yourself trying to copy things from books with no actual reward in sight for your effort.

gingerwoman said:

But he reads all the time with no problem he just can't spell. He asks out oldest son how to spell things when trying to write emails.

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I find this very interesting, because it took me a long time to realize different people learn to spell in completely different ways. I can visually see if a word looks right or wrong when I write it on paper, and I always attributed that skill to voracious reading. Obviously, despite voracious reading this doesn't work for your husband; spelling works in a completely different way for him. I conclude that it wouldn't be logical to expect someone who doesn't learn in the spell-by-sight way to be able to recreate writing without a book to copy from. Even then, it seems to me it would likely be slow, painful copying.


But I agree with the general consensus, that it's very odd to put such a plot point in without it being pivotal in some way.

I've struggled to write anything by hand all my life. As a child I was kinda-sorta tested for a learning disability with no results, and since I've been able to type fine and read at a high level I never cared to follow up. But it's no exaggeration that I can *barely* draw a stick figure. And my handwriting -- I found some old school papers a few years back and it hasn't changed in anything but size since first grade. I just have a weird block between my brain and my fingers.

So yeah, I see reading and writing as two separate skills. Or at least, they are for me.

As long as she hasn't mastered any other tasks that require fine motor skills (embroidery comes to mind for an early 20th C woman) I think I could buy it. Penmanship, particularly the sort of that era was a highly practiced skill; it was often done with ink and quills on parchment, which is not quite the same as writing with a Bic on a piece of looseleaf. Ball points didn't become common until nearly mid 20th.

If she has the funds, she could always hire someone to scribe the final letter for her. Or maybe she gets her hands on some new fangled writing thinger that has a little ball at the end so she doesn't have to worry about ink blotches?

Reading will not help anyone write cursive, but I have no doubt such a person could print well enough for the writing to be read. I had a grandmother who was like this. She read constantly, but never learned how to write. She could still print well enough to easily get her point across. Nothing she printed was complicated, however. Everything was simple, declarative sentences, no transitions, etc.

Now, a person who's intelligent enough can learn how to read, and to write, on their own. It's rare, but it has happened.

I knew people in the mountains of Kentucky, on the other hand, who couldn't read, but who could write a reasonable amount. I'm not sure they understood much of what they wrote in a reading sense, but they still knew what it meant. These were all phrases they had been taught to write, learned to copy, but really took someone else's word for the meaning. They could, for instance, write their names beautifully, but they didn't know why what they wrote was their names. They had someone write their names, and copied it over and over until they could duplicate it easily.

I learned to read well before I learned to write, and I learned to write cursive before I learned to print, primarily because I learned both before starting school.

People can be amazing. I think it would be very rare for someone who could read well not to be able to print, but, I'd be willing to bet that three fourths of the people I know today can't write cursive worth a darn. Others, however, can write cursive beautifully, and with little to no formal schooling.

justJM said:

The last chapter of the book is a long letter written by the character. At the beginning of the letter, she casually mentions that she's (obviously) learned to write. So, there was no fundamental difficulty for her, at least not one that was put on the page.

It seemed a strange treatment of that minor plot point, but it wasn't the only odd thing in the book.

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Sounds like a Ta Dah! moment that was just slapped onto the story. Now you've got me curious as to what book this is.

It's the handling of this curiosity that's the real problem - if there had been even a slight indication as to why she could read but not write - perhaps due to her eccentric father, perhaps due to a physical disorder - then it would make more sense. It obviously bothered other readers in your group too.

Jamesaritchie said:

I think it would be very rare for someone who could read well not to be able to print, but, I'd be willing to bet that three fourths of the people I know today can't write cursive worth a darn.

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I have people sign stuff at work many times a day, and a lot of the younger (early 20s and younger) pause when I say, "And sign here" or "Now your signature goes here" and then will print out their names instead of using cursive. Some don't know what "signature" means and will ask me, "Do you mean my name?"

I think cursive isn't emphasized now as it was when I was in grade school many moons ago.

Thank god we're not expected to write in cursive anymore. It was very painful to do.

Hapax Legomenon said:

Thank god we're not expected to write in cursive anymore. It was very painful to do.

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Where did you get that? We are expected to write in cursive. It's part of basic education, and if you can't write in cursive, you can't write at all.

juniper said:

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I have people sign stuff at work many times a day, and a lot of the younger (early 20s and younger) pause when I say, "And sign here" or "Now your signature goes here" and then will print out their names instead of using cursive. Some don't know what "signature" means and will ask me, "Do you mean my name?"

I think cursive isn't emphasized now as it was when I was in grade school many moons ago.

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Well, I suspect these are the same people who made McDonald's put pictures on their cash registers. What hasn't been emphasized in school for much too long is education. I think it's getting better, but a surprising number of high school graduates have a fifth grade education.

Jamesaritchie said:

Where did you get that? We are expected to write in cursive. It's part of basic education, and if you can't write in cursive, you can't write at all.

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As someone who hand writes about 1,000 words a day and has boxes and boxes of notebooks filled with writing stretching back to second grade, I think I know what writing method pains my hand and what does not.

At an equal level of mastery, I find cursive quicker and easier than print; but I've actually done some personal work on refining my handwriting, since school had left me with a horrible hand position and writing technique.

But cursive should be able to be shown to be measurably easier. To write "justice" in print you have tp raise your pen 9 times; in cursive, 3 times.

Hapax Legomenon said:

As someone who hand writes about 1,000 words a day

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Not to be too picky - to most people, does "handwriting" mean both printing and cursive? To me, when I hear/see "handwriting" I think cursive. If it's not cursive, then it's just printing. Wikipedia says I'm wrong, though.

Here's a recent article about handwriting being taught in schools. It says many educators think it's not important, but many psychologists and neuroscientists think it is.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?_r=0

I had a fine motor delay which prevented me from writing anything legibly by hand until I was 11 or so, but I learned to read at age 3, so it's certainly possible to be able to read and not write. Of course, if that's the case, the character would be unable to do any fine skills.

It still pisses me off that I struggled so hard to learn a skill which is now completely obsolete. Since getting my tablet 2 years ago, I haven't touched a pen except to sign my name.

When I say "hand write" I mean "write with my hand". As in, with a pen and a piece of paper, and I end up with a paper with a bunch of my writing on it.

I found cursive to be immensely painful for all the years I was forced to do it, so when I was no longer forced to do it, I never did it again. My hand must be crazy but for some reason placing less pressure on your pen so that it doesn't make a mark is easier on my hand than putting more pressure on my hand so that it does make a mark, and therefore the horrible stuff it churns out day in and day out is easier than anything I was taught at school.

There is a type of handwriting that becomes automatic to people who write a lot and do not think of method. That's what I have.

Jamesaritchie said:

Now, a person who's intelligent enough can learn how to read, and to write, on their own.

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More or less Abe Lincoln in a nutshell. (Kentuckian.) Had but a few weeks of schoolin' all told. You'd never know it:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

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Jamesaritchie said:

Where did you get that? We are expected to write in cursive. It's part of basic education, and if you can't write in cursive, you can't write at all.

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Cursive is pretty much useless.

Writing anything by hand is on its way to being obsolete.

juniper said:

Not to be too picky - to most people, does "handwriting" mean both printing and cursive? To me, when I hear/see "handwriting" I think cursive. If it's not cursive, then it's just printing. Wikipedia says I'm wrong, though.

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Handwriting to me means writing by hand.

Doesn't matter whether it's print or cursive or something else.

kuwisdelu said:

Handwriting to me means writing by hand.

Doesn't matter whether it's print or cursive or something else.

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I'm with Kuwisdelu on the printing/cursive both count thing.

kuwisdelu said:

Cursive is pretty much useless.

Writing anything by hand is on its way to being obsolete.



Handwriting to me means writing by hand.

Doesn't matter whether it's print or cursive or something else.

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If you believe any of that, I feel sorry for you.

This might not be impossible or implausible, but especially after reading others' comments, it does seem unlikely. The character would have to not only have access to many books, but NOT have access to anything that could make marks on a surface so she couldn't "accidentally" learn. I recall a friend telling how his four-year-old daughter picked up a rock and wrote her initial on the car door (though admittedly, she had surely already been taught to print letters, at least for her name).

I started learning reading in the first grade, where I also learned printing letters. I recall the first class on printing, the teacher had us write a bunch of Ds across the page.

This was in the 1960s, and I understand since then some of this is taught in kindergarden (it seems that when I attended kindergarden it had something to do with socializing and playing nice with the other kids in the class, in preparation for "actual learning" of ABCs in the first and later grades).

Yes, these are "separate" skills even if I associate them being learned together.

We used crayons and paints-and-easels in kindergarden. That surely helps with hand movement and hand-eye coordination. I'm thinking had this character had crayons at a young age, and access to any kind of writing or marking tools later on, she would have learned to "write" something on her own, even if it were only a few marks that she had her own meanings for.

So yes, at most any time in history, it seems being well-read but unable to write at all would be extremely unusual (teach reading and provide books, yet withhold rules or blank paper and writing utensils), and probably the result of what we would now call child abuse. One can have smaller holes in one's education, but I don't see this particular thing being some "random" character in a book.

justJM said:

The last chapter of the book is a long letter written by the character. At the beginning of the letter, she casually mentions that she's (obviously) learned to write. So, there was no fundamental difficulty for her, at least not one that was put on the page.

It seemed a strange treatment of that minor plot point, but it wasn't the only odd thing in the book.

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Is there any indication of how long it took her to learn to write?

Jamesaritchie said:

Where did you get that? We are expected to write in cursive. It's part of basic education, and if you can't write in cursive, you can't write at all.

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Maybe this explains me.

I was on the schedule to learn cursive in the 3rd grade, but I got shoveled off into a special class for a few years and never learned it. It was something I often regretted not learning.

In college I discovered computers (well, mostly computer terminals and a KIM-1). After a a year I could type on an ASR-33 about as fast as I could print.

Chasing the Horizon said:

I had a fine motor delay which prevented me from writing anything legibly by hand until I was 11 or so, but I learned to read at age 3, so it's certainly possible to be able to read and not write. Of course, if that's the case, the character would be unable to do any fine skills.

It still pisses me off that I struggled so hard to learn a skill which is now completely obsolete. Since getting my tablet 2 years ago, I haven't touched a pen except to sign my name.

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Imagine people learning to touch-type now. I wonder how much longer there will be "keyboarding" classes in school.

kuwisdelu said:

Cursive is pretty much useless.

Writing anything by hand is on its way to being obsolete.

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I recall when PDAs had cursive writing recognition. Then there was the tiny physical keys as on the Blackberry, and now that has been replaced with an onscreen touchscreen keyboard.

Even typing is on its way to being obsolete. It's not quite in widespread use, but most computers can be semi-reliably operated by voice command, and some are almost exclusively. Just ask Siri or say "Ok Glass."

I'm wondering if I should sell my collection of Model M's while they're worth something, or keep them a few more decades with the hopes that everyone else with any kind of computer keyboard throws theirs away, resulting in these becoming uber-desirable for the few who would want them.

I use handwriting to mean anything written by hand, and the vast majority of people I know use it in the same way. I learned cursive in elementary school, but I hated it. I'm old enough to remember when final drafts for papers in high school and middle school were required to be done in cursive, but I also turned in printed papers in both those levels. In college I turned in all my papers printed(from a printer, I mean) and I "printed" in-class writing assignments. My handwriting is pretty awful, however, especially in cursive, so I think my college professors got the better deal with me using printed letters.


I haven't much used cursive outside of my signature since high school.


Also, a bit more on topic, I'd almost call it re-learning to write learning to sign those stupid touchscreen signature devices. Seriously, changing writing media can have a major impact on writing "ability". Just like being able to draw in pencil doesn't mean you can do it with a mouse. Your body learns to deal with the friction co-efficient, how hard you have to press to get good visibility, etc for each individual writing utensil. I remember trying to mimic brushstrokes for kanji when we were practicing in pencil, and it seemed rather silly.