8 Reasons we Must Teach Handwriting in Schools

The biggest controversy to take place in the world of penmanship is happening right now: A lot of persons are of the opinion that Handwriting will no longer be taught in elementary schools. And things are getting pretty heated.

Where does your allegiance fall?

It's much more likely that keyboarding will help students succeed in careers and in school than handwriting. So instead of learning handwriting skill, kids might learn typing skills. This of course sounds interesting, but in the real sense it is the worst thing that will ever happen to our kids. In this blog post, I will love to share with you reasons why skill must not be replaced with typing skills. As a matter of fact, handwriting is even more important than it has ever been. Let’s consider the following:

1. Poor spelling among kids

If you have not yet observed, it is imperative that you confront kids who are tech savvy in any school. Majority of them have problem spelling words correctly. This is as a result of Microsoft Spell Check. This is not only affecting our kids, it is affecting almost everyone. NOBODY knows how to spell without a computer anymore. This makes it very important for additional spelling lessons to be added to the curriculum.

2. Handwriting is the foundation for every kid.

Learning to write is one of the most important things that a child at primary school will learn. Children use their writing in almost all other subjects of the curriculum. For a child, learning to write can be a tricky business, not least because good writing involves handwriting, spelling, grammar and punctuation not to mention what we want to write and who we are writing for. Good writing also gives children a voice to share their ideas with the world.

3. Develops motor skills

Handwriting requires a very different skill set from print writing. It involves using the hand muscles in a different way. Additionally, it activates a different part of the brain than regular writing does. At the age writing skill is taught, around 5 to 8 years old, these skills can be very beneficial in furthering motor skill development.

4. Reinforces learning

When students are taught the English language in only one form, print writing, they get only one chance to learn and memorize the letters. By having to learn cursive as well, students get another opportunity to fully comprehend the alphabet. Learning cursive also gives students a clearer understanding of how letters are formed, which will improve their print writing as well.

5. Working with legal documents

Being comfortable with handwriting skills will guarantee that students will be confident when writing and signing legal documentation. A cursive signature is most commonly required to endorse legal documents, accompanied by a printed version of their name too. Writing and signing checks is another reason for learning cursive. Cursive writing has historically been the standard style when writing authorized checks for payment. Students risk being confident and successful when working with basic legal documents if they don’t learn cursive writing.

6. Helps students with disabilities

Students with learning disabilities, specifically dyslexia, can have a very hard time with writing in print because many of the letters look similar, particularly b and d. Hand written letters, however, look very different from print letters. This gives dyslexic students another option—an option that can decrease their dyslexic tendencies and make them more confident in their abilities.

7. Cursive writing is a lot of art form

More and more school districts are cutting art from their budgets. This can be detrimental to the full development of students. However, handwriting skills could be considered an art form all its own. It is one more way for students to develop the side of their brain that is not developed by basic reading and writing skills. The more diverse a teaching curriculum is, the better.

8. Connects students to the past

Without being able to read cursive writing, students will undoubtedly be kept from many opportunities to read important documents. Think about it: so many historical documents are written in cursive. While some of these documents are readily available online in print form, not all of them are.

Finally,

Not only will students miss out on a part of history, they may very well miss out on reading important letters and cards from their grandparents or great-grandparents, too. Older generations often still write in cursive on a daily basis, and kids often rely on their parents to translate these letters and cards for them because they simply cannot read the cursive writing. Forty years from now, when these grandparents have passed on, kids may want to look back on these letters, and they should be able to read them properly.

We cannot over emphasis the need of creative handwriting  in primary schools. Hence the need for the upcoming Hand Writing competition. This will definitely enforce this culture, and enable primary school teachers to be more effective as they teach our kids.