Cursive, writing, or penmanship – whatever you want to call it is on the verge of being eliminated from the elementary curriculum. For the past several years cursive has been slowly eliminated from the teaching day to be replaced for more time for reading and math studies. Several states are now fighting to keep it in the curriculum even though it has been omitted from the Common Core Standards. The digital age has caused some state leaders to exclude cursive handwriting for a number of reasons including an increased need for children to master computer keyboarding and that most adults ultimately use a hybrid of cursive and print in everyday life.
Many parents and educators believe cursive writing is important because it engages the brain in ways keyboarding does not. Brain research states that the hand-brain relationship is important for children. Using sequential strokes is required for forming cursive letters. This involves thinking, language, and memory, thus, activating various regions of the brain. According to an article in Psychology Today, What Learning Cursive Does for Your Brain published on March 14, 2013 states, “scientists are discovering that learning cursive is an important tool for cognitive development and training the brain to learn… In the case of learning cursive writing, the brain develops functional specialization that integrates both sensation, movement control, and thinking.” Cursive writing helps train the brain to combine visual and tactile information, and fine motor dexterity. The brain development in writing is similar to what is obtained when learning to play a musical instrument. Cursive handwriting creates interplay of both the left and the right sides of the brain resulting in increased metal effectiveness.
There are several advantages to the teaching of cursive writing:
• Writing in cursive ignites skills needed for reading. For children to write legible cursive, students have to concentrate on what and how they are making various strokes. The continuous strokes and joined letters in cursive handwriting help young children to join letter sounds to make words. This in turn leads to fluency in reading and writing. The mental manipulation of strokes and the formation of letters represent the recognition of patterns.
• In that cursive writing involves connecting letters, it increases the speed of writing and the student’s attention span. The increased and continuous fluency in writing encourages the student to write more.
• Self-confidence is increased with the ability to master a skill to write legibly and fluidly.
• Cursive writing builds self-discipline as the student continues to practice to improve.
• Handwriting eliminates the frequent start and stop that is required when printing letters. It also eliminates reversals of the letters ‘b’ and ‘d’.
Keeping penmanship in the classroom is important. There are times when your computer, tablet, or smart phone is not easily assessable. This is when a pen/pencil and paper is needed – to quickly jot down an idea, suggestion, or a note. If you are handed a hand written note, you may need to read cursive in order to understand what is written. There are also valuable cultural resources that twill be lost to a generation if cursive writing is eliminated from the curriculum. If writing is not included in today’s standards, valuable time will be lost in the classrooms as it is taught as an extra curricular subject.
Giving my professional opinion, handwriting is a vital life-skill for all of the above reasons. I also feel that keyboarding skills need to be a requirement in schools. My own children were taught handwriting back in the days of their elementary school years. As small children they had a computer that they used on a daily basis. In knowing that they would eventually be required to turn in computer typed papers, I forced them into taking keyboarding (typing) as an elective in high school. Today, both of my children have computer based jobs. My one son prints only when jotting down notes while working at his computer. He claims that ‘cursive is the worst thing ever invented’. My other son uses a hybrid that is mostly cursive and claims that it is faster than printing.
Whichever you use as an adult, I have first hand experience at seeing that the benefits of learning cursive gave my children excellent reading, thinking, and language skills along with self-confidence and the ability to use both hemispheres of the brain. Cursive writing should not be eliminated from the school curriculum.
