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VOA慢速英语2009年-Education Report - Write or Wrong: The Dea

时间:2009-11-07 06:42:52

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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

Do American children still learn handwriting in school? In this age of the keyboard, some people seem to think handwriting lessons are on the way out.

We asked a literacy1 professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Steve Graham says he has been hearing about the death of handwriting for the past fifteen years. So is it still being taught?

STEVE GRAHAM: "If the results of a survey we had published this year are accurate, it is being taught by about ninety percent of teachers in grades one to three."

Ninety percent of teachers also say they are required to teach handwriting. But studies have yet to answer the question of how well they are teaching it. Professor Graham says one study published this year found that about three out of every four teachers say they are not prepared to teach handwriting.

STEVE GRAHAM: "And then when you look at how it's taught, you have some teachers who are teaching handwriting by providing instruction for ten, fifteen minutes a day, and then other teachers who basically teach it for sixty to seventy minutes a day -- which really for handwriting is pretty much death."

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 express ideas. After all, that is why we write.

Professor Graham says handwriting involves two skills. One is legibility, which means forming the letters so they can be read. The other is fluency2 -- writing without having to think about it. The professor says 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 anymore because of computers and voice recognition3 programs.

But Steve Graham at Vanderbilt says word processing is rarely done in elementary school, especially in the early years.

STEVE GRAHAM: "Even with high school teachers, we find that less than fifty percent of assignments are done via word processing or with word processing. And, in fact, if we added in taking notes and doing tests in class, most of the writing done in school is done by hand."

American children traditionally first learn to print, then to write in cursive, which connects the letters. But guess what we learned from a spokeswoman for the College Board, which administers4 the SAT college admission test. More than seventy-five percent of students choose to print their essay on the test rather than write in cursive.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. To learn more about handwriting research, and to share comments, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.


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1 literacy L3tyN     
n.识字,有文化,读写能力
参考例句:
  • I can't believe that he failed the literacy test.我无法相信他识字测试不及格。
  • The literacy rate there is the highest in Central America.那里的识字率居中美洲之首。
2 fluency ajCxF     
n.流畅,雄辩,善辩
参考例句:
  • More practice will make you speak with greater fluency.多练习就可以使你的口语更流利。
  • Some young children achieve great fluency in their reading.一些孩子小小年纪阅读已经非常流畅。
3 recognition zUYxm     
n.承认,认可,认出,认识
参考例句:
  • The place has changed beyond recognition.这地方变得认不出来了。
  • A sudden smile of recognition flashed across his face.他脸上掠过一丝笑意,表示认识对方。
4 administers a513a04ad48b1b2bdd3db9267f56833d     
管理( administer的第三人称单数 ); 治理(国家); 给予; 执行
参考例句:
  • Physical exercise administers to the circulation of the blood. 体育锻炼有助于血液循环。
  • Health administers to peace of mind. 健康有助于身心的安宁。

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