Thursday, December 9, 2010

Writing Real Letters

Emphasis on REAL.  Yesterday, as I was carting the kids hither and yon, I heard a news blurb on the radio.  Kids at a local college were being taught to write REAL letters.  They interviewed one of the professors and she was discussing a few recent surveys about the lack of letter writing skills among college age adults. Absolutely amazing.   She went on to say that many universities are finding their students lack the ability to write letters at all-- formal or informal -- because they only know how to text and certainly don't know how to email a proper letter, either. 

"Wow," I thought as I was driving, "I am certainly glad that I homeschool!"  We began teaching the children to write proper letters at an early age.  headings, salutations, body, complimentary close and the signature.  I consider not being able to write a proper letter by the time you go off to college as being functionally illiterate.  It is mind boggling that schools are not teaching students how to write a proper letter. 

When is the last time you wrote a REAL letter to a friend.  Not an email, but a real letter.  Is letter writing a lost art?  I make hand-stamped cards and love to send them to friends and family.  Try to make a point of writing a letter to a friend today....... a REAL letter!

1 comment:

Lisa Boyle said...

Makes us all glad we homeschool! :-)

Seriously, though, I think letter writing is sadly becoming a lost art. Most teachers don't even want to teach cursive today because the prevailing sentiment is "when will they ever use it?"

Children today never being able to write cursive means that they won't be able to read it, either. So, when Christmas cards come addressed in cursive or when a professor writes notes on the board in cursive, these kids are illiterate and won't even be able to function. Sad....