D'nealian And Italic

[KateGladstone]

Some people asked me if (or asserted that) D'Nealian and Italic were the same thing (as is being claimed by the biggest companies that compete with both of them: HWTears and Zaner-Bloser).

 

Others asked me which is the simpler style (D'N or Italic), or claimed that D'N was the simpler style with the fewest extraneous details and letter-changes and so forth

 

The attached graphics -- two showing D'N manuscript and cursive, then one showing Italic manuscript and cursive (specifically, from the Getty-Dubay program, which calls its manuscript version "basic Italic") should answer the above inquiries and assertions.

 

D'Nealian:

 

Italic:

[The Royal Pen]

I tend to agree with Zaner-Bloser. I think that D'Nealian lacks the extravagance and beauty that Zaner-Bloser, the Spencerian, Palmer, Copperplate, and Petersons methods posess. I think that the D'Nealian is an easy way out, and lazy way to learn cursive AND italic. I don't think D'Nealian, nor HWT should be taught in schools. I think they should stick with the ZB, Palmer (catholic schools), and Peterson which is most common.

[KateGladstone]

I don't have an idea what you like about Z-B and Palmer and Peterson,

but D'N isn't a "lazy way" to learn Italic -- it's NO way to learn Italic.

[The Royal Pen]

I don't have an idea what you like about Z-B and Palmer and Peterson,

but D'N isn't a "lazy way" to learn Italic -- it's NO way to learn Italic.

 

What I like about the Palmer ZB and Peterson is the loops and decorations and commitment and time it takes for it's perfection. I believe in working on your penmanship 'till your fingers bleed (not really, now).

I think penmanship is dying throughout all the isles, and all the country (ies).

Italic is beautiful too, and D'N is a very NO way to learn italic, I agree. I'm just the kind of person for the extra mile.

If it's good, make it better. I like the simplicity that Peterson and Palmer present, it is simple, but extravagant and beautiful at the same time. Zaner-Bloser is beautiful, and a very easy to learn method. I also like Spencerian, and the English Roundhand. Hurrah! I say, for loops and frills and thrills and curls and all that fun stuff !! :clap1:

Hurrah! For the wonderful fountain pens that make it possible!

[RLTodd]

Everytime D'Nealian comes up my first thought is "gee, the guy made Zaner-Blosser look really ugly, umph."

 

I still go with Zaner Blosser, and someone is going to have to come up with some well designed objectively peer reviewed studies to show that HWT can do anything better.

 

For looks, I still think Palmer is the prettiest, but so few people take the effort to do it anymore and it probably isn't worth it. I'm thinking the average students must have worked something like an hour a day for eight years to get good at Palmer. (Don't know for sure, I attended one of the worst school systems in one of th worst States for schools systems in the Nation.)

 

Cursive Italic is OK, it works, but it doesn't look as nice as Z-B, in my opinion.

 

Somewhere around here there are some examples of Tom Mulhane's (Old Griz) Plamer script. Pretty stuff.

 

If appearances count, well done Palmer script probably creates the most upscale impression of the unseen writer.

[KateGladstone]

Royal Pen -- I value commitment (to worrthwhile things, such as speed and legibility). I see little value in commitment to "loop and decorations ... and time."

 

And what Palmer and Peterson present -- to me, anyway -- is the diametric opposite of "simplicity": certainly in the case of Peterson, with its sequence of *four* styles to learn by fourth grade (as well as other complications I could name). In my observation and experience, all those people over age 10 who write Peterson legibly -- and in particular, those who write it well -- also write it very, very slowly.

 

(I will admit that some of my judgment on Peterson comes from having run into Peterson "washouts" -- at one hospital where I taught, not far from Peterson headquarters, literally 90% of the staff had grown up on Peterson, and the ones who recalled the most rigorous adherence (at their school) to the program were also, by and large, the one with the most seriously accident-prone handwriting, (Some of these staffer had also recently had a refresher course in Peterson -- courtesy of the firm's adult course, which some of them had pursued at their supervisors' suggestion -- but these did not write any more legibly, or maintain legibility any better at speed, than the rest.)

 

The "loops and frills and thrills and curls and all that fun stuff" are not fun for me -- I gladly leave them to all who love them and who can do them well (quite a few of whom have become winners in my contest, no matter how some may imagine that nobody has an interest in "proper cursive" and so on). In my view, such teaching SHOULD exist -- but as an option, for those who love it and who have the "right stuff" to do it well. The "loops and frills and thrills and curls" are to handwriting as Olympic gymnastics are to walking. Like the Olympics, they should not be compulsory for small children: teach them to walk first! (And then, let those go further who will, and who can. Better a competent, haopy, and habitual walker than an incompetent and unwilling gymnast.)

 

The people who run Peterson -- at http://www.peterson-handwriting.com -- are, some of them, quite nice and charming fellows, and quite a few of their ideas on practice and so on are reasonable: but all this does not (in my opinion) fully outweigh the problems built into the four separate styles of alphabet that they teach. (And I will admit that I had a bit of a laugh when, after 75 years, they discontinued their school handwriting contest, on the grounds that the entries in its final year had been so few and so poor that the contest directors /a/ would not award a prize, and /b/ concluded that no one any more was interested in proper handwriting. This was the same year, as it happened, that my own handwriting contest went from USA-wide to worldwide, at the demand of interested people within and beyond the USA -- and the entries have provided, I think, proper enough handwriting by any standard.)

[caliken]

but D'N isn't a "lazy way" to learn Italic -- it's NO way to learn Italic.

 

Being from Europe, I've only recently seen D'Nealian for the first time and I have to say that, in my opinion, it bears no resemblance to Italic. I believe that it derives directly from English Roundhand (minuscules) and Business Writing (majuscules).

 

The D'Nealian miniscules are almost identical to the Vere Foster Civil Service script which I learned at school in Scotland in the 1940s.

 

Vere Foster Civil Service script see here is a simplified version of English Roundhand.

 

 

 

 

 

caliken

Edited August 10, 2010 by caliken

[KateGladstone]

but D'N isn't a "lazy way" to learn Italic -- it's NO way to learn Italic.

 

Being from Europe, I've only recently seen D'Nealian for the first time and I have to say that, in my opinion, it bears no resemblance to Italic. I believe that it derives directly from English Roundhand (minuscules) and Business Writing (majuscules).

 

The D'Nealian miniscules are almost identical to the Vere Foster Civil Service script which I learned at school in Scotland in the 1940s.

 

Vere Foster Civil Service script see here is a simplified version of English Roundhand.

 

 

 

The D'Nealian cursive was not originally part of the program -- it was made up by the company that bought the program from its creator (because he had created only an unjoined stage, because that's all he believed in). The cursive stage of D'Nealian was created to look as close to existing school handwriting models in the USA as possible, since the firm that had bought D'N believed that no other way of joined writing could possibly be accepted.

 

The manuscript stage of D'Nealian, when it was invented, looked a lot more like Italic (and was even written with an edged pen), but this too is something that the purchasing corporation changed to be more "acceptable" to customers back in 1976 when the company bought it.

 

Since that time, the original designer of D'Nealian (whom I know slightly) has tried to get the company to change it back, but he has failed to persuade them -- they don't want to change something that they are making millions off of.

 

 

 

caliken

 

 

 

[KateGladstone]

Re:

 

... someone is going to have to come up with some well designed objectively peer reviewed studies to show that HWT can do anything better.

 

The HWTears people quote lots of "research" -- but if you look it up (from the citations they give you), you'll find that the studies either /a/ didn't involve HWTears at all, or /b/ are misquoted (often by removing such important little words as "not" from a sentence quoted), or /c/ both.

 

When this is pointed out to the management, they tend to throw tantrums and tell you that you are an opponent of handwriting because you are working against the spread of their method (which they think is going to save handwriting).

 

Sometimes, if enough people point out the ludicrousness of including a particular study in their published research list, they will eventually remove it from their published research list because they realize that they can no longer prevent that study from making them look stupid.

 

For example -- until a year or so ago, some of the research they quoted as "supporting HWTears" was research that hadn't even looked at HWTears (it had compared the results of Zaner-Bloser, D'Nealian, and Italic -- and Italic had won). When I found this out and wrote them an e-mail asking why this study was included (and demonstrating that I had read the study & therefore knew what it had said and what it didn't say) -- my e-mail never got an answer, but within six months the study had quietly disappeared from their research-list.

 

As far as I know, I was the only person writing them any letter about it -- really, it should not be that way.

[The Royal Pen]

Royal Pen -- I value commitment (to worrthwhile things, such as speed and legibility). I see little value in commitment to "loop and decorations ... and time."

 

And what Palmer and Peterson present -- to me, anyway -- is the diametric opposite of "simplicity": certainly in the case of Peterson, with its sequence of *four* styles to learn by fourth grade (as well as other complications I could name). In my observation and experience, all those people over age 10 who write Peterson legibly -- and in particular, those who write it well -- also write it very, very slowly.

 

(I will admit that some of my judgment on Peterson comes from having run into Peterson "washouts" -- at one hospital where I taught, not far from Peterson headquarters, literally 90% of the staff had grown up on Peterson, and the ones who recalled the most rigorous adherence (at their school) to the program were also, by and large, the one with the most seriously accident-prone handwriting, (Some of these staffer had also recently had a refresher course in Peterson -- courtesy of the firm's adult course, which some of them had pursued at their supervisors' suggestion -- but these did not write any more legibly, or maintain legibility any better at speed, than the rest.)

 

The "loops and frills and thrills and curls and all that fun stuff" are not fun for me -- I gladly leave them to all who love them and who can do them well (quite a few of whom have become winners in my contest, no matter how some may imagine that nobody has an interest in "proper cursive" and so on). In my view, such teaching SHOULD exist -- but as an option, for those who love it and who have the "right stuff" to do it well. The "loops and frills and thrills and curls" are to handwriting as Olympic gymnastics are to walking. Like the Olympics, they should not be compulsory for small children: teach them to walk first! (And then, let those go further who will, and who can. Better a competent, haopy, and habitual walker than an incompetent and unwilling gymnast.)

 

The people who run Peterson -- at http://www.peterson-handwriting.com -- are, some of them, quite nice and charming fellows, and quite a few of their ideas on practice and so on are reasonable: but all this does not (in my opinion) fully outweigh the problems built into the four separate styles of alphabet that they teach. (And I will admit that I had a bit of a laugh when, after 75 years, they discontinued their school handwriting contest, on the grounds that the entries in its final year had been so few and so poor that the contest directors /a/ would not award a prize, and /b/ concluded that no one any more was interested in proper handwriting. This was the same year, as it happened, that my own handwriting contest went from USA-wide to worldwide, at the demand of interested people within and beyond the USA -- and the entries have provided, I think, proper enough handwriting by any standard.)

I prefer cursive, you prefer italic. Good enough. Everyone has their own preference Legibility and speed are important, I forgot to mention that.

[wallylynn]

I believe that it derives directly from English Roundhand (minuscules) and Business Writing (majuscules).

 

The D'Nealian miniscules are almost identical to the Vere Foster Civil Service script which

...

is a simplified version of English Roundhand.

Hmmm, maybe that's explains why I was once-upon-a-time complimented on my D'Nealian cursive. I always considered it quite pretty and very legible and still use it occasionally. If it is indeed a modern English Roundhand, I'll have to use it more often.

[Pentech42]

....

 

For looks, I still think Palmer is the prettiest, but so few people take the effort to do it anymore and it probably isn't worth it. I'm thinking the average students must have worked something like an hour a day for eight years to get good at Palmer. (Don't know for sure, I attended one of the worst school systems in one of th worst States for schools systems in the Nation.)

 

 

I just had to go look for examples of the various scripts and found to my delight that my writing is closest to Palmer than Z-B or D'N. Now I just have to get it to look as crisp as the examples.