Do American children still learn handwriting in school?In th

Do American children still learn handwriting in school?In the age of the keyboard,some people seem to think handwriting lessons are on the way out.90% of teachers say they are required to teach handwriting.But studies have yet to answer the question of how well they are teaching it.One study published this year found that about three out of every four teacherssay they are not prepared to teach handwriting.Some teachers are teaching handwriting by providing instruction for ten to fifteen minutes a day,and then other teachers who basically teach it for sixty to seventy minutes a day － which really is pretty much for handwriting.Many adults remember learning that way － by copying letters over and over again.Today's thinking is that short periods of practice are better.Many experts also think handwriting should not be taught by itself.Instead,they say it should be used as a way to get students to expressideas.After all,that is why we write.Handwriting involves two skills.One is legibility,which means forming the letters so they canbe read.The other is fluency － writing without having to think about it.Fluency continues to develop up until high school.But not everyone masters these skills.Teachers commonly report that about one fourth of their kids have poor handwriting.Some people might think handwriting is not important any more because of computers and voice recognition programs.But Steve Graham at Vanderbilt says word processing is rarely done in elementary school,especially in the early years.American children traditionally first learn to print,and then to writein cursive,which connects the letters.But guess what we learned from a spokeswoman for the College Board,which administers the SAT college admission test.More than 75% of students choose to print their essay on the test rather than write in cursive.全文翻译,不要用翻译工具

在美国的学校,同学们还在学习书法吗?在当今键盘时代,似乎有的人认为书法课已经过时了.90%的老师说需要他们去教书法.但得研究出如何教书法这个问题,在今年出版的一份研究报告中发现,四分之三的教师对教书法尚无准备,有的老师教书法是通过指导学生一天十至十五分钟去练习,而有的一天基本上要教上六,七十分钟的时间,这时间对练书法来说是够长的,许多成年人仍记得当初他们练习书法是一遍又一遍的去抄.今天的看法是短期练习效果更佳.许多专家也认为书法本身就不需要去教,而是把书法当成表达思想的一种方式.总之,那就是我们书书写写的原因.
书法包含两方面的技能.一是它的易读性,也就是为了能读才把字母组合在一起.另一方面是流畅性,也就是不必考虑好再去写,这一直持续到中学时候.但并不是每个人都掌握了这些技能,一般老师们都说他们有四分之一的学生书法不好.有的人或许会认为,由于电脑和语音识别程序的原故,书法已不再重要,范德堡大学的史蒂夫.格雷厄姆说在小学特别是低年级时,很少会进行文字处理.在传统上,美国的孩子们往往先学描摹,再学行草,行草就是字母连着书写.但请猜想一下我们会从理事会发言人那里学到什么,理事会是负责管理学习能力测试的.75%以上的学生在写随笔时是采用打印,而不会用行草的方式把它写下来.