Individuals usually credit score my good handwriting to my Catholic college schooling—like a nun with a ruler and a style for corporal punishment perfected my penmanship. However that’s not why. It’s due to my mother. An engineer by commerce, she will execute the sort of good block letters that solely include years of engaged on a drafting board. As a child, I labored to imitate her print in addition to her extremely ornate cursive. I don’t follow these expertise practically sufficient as an grownup, although: As a reporter, velocity trumps magnificence relating to taking notes. Now, with a lot of my job being completed on a keyboard, I fear even that scrawl is in danger.
Mine shouldn’t be an remoted devolution. Mother and father, educators, and fellow penmanship advocates have been lamenting the end of handwriting for years. Electronic mail started edging out playing cards and letters many years in the past. Then smartphones hit the market, and our reliance on paper notes, wall calendars, and Submit-it reminders dwindled. In US public faculties, the main focus has shifted from handwriting to typing, as an increasing number of children are uncovered to iPads and computer systems in tandem with pencils. And previously few years, AI has made it in order that people barely must assume, not to mention jot one thing down. Now greater than ever, it may appear as if handwriting is doomed.
It’s not.
Whereas the handwringing and feelings are at an all-time excessive, the case for handwriting is stronger than ever, too. Certain, a number of the attachment is nostalgia. Within the US, there’s even a bizarre sense that figuring out cursive is a few kind of civic duty for Americans. All of these arguments for handwriting overlook one thing: There are actual advantages to studying to carry a pen in your hand and use it.
US public faculties nonetheless require that youngsters be taught handwriting, so it’s not but a misplaced artwork, however there’s some proof that digital natives are much less “prepared” for writing now than college students previously, says Karen Ray, a lecturer in occupational remedy on the College of Newcastle in Australia. In 2021, Ray coauthored a study analyzing whether or not children who grew up with units possessed the identical positive motor expertise as children who didn’t. Whereas these college students met the anticipated efficiency ranges on guide dexterity exams, their general motor proficiency was decrease than earlier norms. In the end, the researchers hypothesized, time spent holding units fairly than pencils is perhaps impacting whether or not children had all of the motor expertise they wanted to study handwriting once they entered kindergarten.
But when children at all times have entry to units, does it actually matter whether or not they can write with their arms? Sure and no. If the previous few years of digital nomad work and vibe coding have taught us something it’s that, professionally, handwriting is probably not all that crucial in a variety of fields. The issue is that studying handwriting is perhaps essential to study every part else. “We don’t but know what we’re shedding when it comes to literacy acquisition by de-emphasizing handwriting fluency,” Ray says.
Among the many half-dozen consultants I spoke to for this piece, there have been variations in opinion on whether or not ethical panics over writing instruction had been warranted. For instance, in lots of states lawmakers have handed laws to ensure kids learn cursive in US public faculties. Some consultants assist this, however many don’t assume studying cursive, particularly, is all that necessary. However practically all agree that figuring out write has cognitive advantages. It helps college students study to learn, and likelihood is if they’ve to consider one thing lengthy sufficient to put in writing it down, they’ll keep in mind it extra totally than if it’s typed.
“Handwriting itself actually does matter,” says Robert Wiley, a psychology professor on the College of North Carolina at Greensboro whose analysis focuses on how the mind processes written language. “Not in an absolute sense; folks aren’t going to be illiterate. However will some kids have a more durable time studying as a result of they’re lacking that follow? Sure.”
