Why handwriting is still essential in the keyboard age

[mainer]

Handwriting experts have struggled with the question of whether cursive writing confers special skills and benefits, beyond the benefits that print writing might provide. Dr. Berninger cited a 2015 study that suggested that starting around fourth grade, cursive skills conferred advantages in both spelling and composing, perhaps because the connecting strokes helped children connect letters into words.

For typically developing young children, typing the letters doesn’t seem to generate the same brain activation. As we grow up, of course, most of us transition to keyboard writing, though like many who teach college students, I have struggled with the question of laptops in class, more because I worry about students’ attention wandering than to promote handwriting. Still, studies on note taking have suggested that “college students who are writing on a keyboard are less likely to remember and do well on the content than if writing it by hand,” Dr. Dinehart said.
(snip)

“What we’re advocating is teaching children to be hybrid writers,” said Dr. Berninger, “manuscript first for reading — it transfers to better word recognition — then cursive for spelling and for composing. Then, starting in late elementary school, touch-typing.”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/why-handwriting-is-still-essential-in-the-keyboard-age/?contentCollection=smarter-living&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

[frazzled]

1. I tend to agree, with provisos.

This is why I don't keep a digital calendar. I have a calendar on the wall next to my desk, in which I write down appointments and events—because I remember them better. But it is perhaps due to habit that I still prefer this method; were I to train myself long enough in keeping a digital calendar, perhaps it would be just as effective. As an editor, I have trained myself to recall small details in manuscripts online, though perhaps it's because I still generally print them out and mark by hand first, as a quick overall rough draft, and then dig into the details on my computer.

I think kids' learning styles really differ though, with respect to reading. My daughter learned to read before she could write well, simply because she demanded to be read to constantly. She simply began to recognize words and read fluently by kindergarten. My son, on the other hand, used to like to play on our very early computer (this was back around 1988 or 89). Finally, he wanted to type things on it: he'd ask, "How do you spell 'Dear'?; how do you spell 'cookie'?. And from typing his own little missives and stories, he learned to read around age 4. He grew up typing everything on a computer, because he had HORRIBLE handwriting and could never even hold a pencil properly, despite our efforts. It was only in graduate school that he decided he had to learn to handwrite! He bought a fancy ink pen and took an online course in handwriting (weird!!).

Still, I think handwriting is important. Because I use it myself so rarely now, I find my own writing has deteriorated badly. Maybe it's age as well.

[mainer]

3. neat penmanship is less important than knowing HOW to write cursive

My handwriting is pretty much illegible, except to me. But I write cursive in my job just about every day, even though I can type 100 words per minute. I just find that I'm far more creative when I use a pen and paper.

[hunter]

2. I can't imagine how people keep notes on computers, especially in science classes.

My notes are a mix of scribbled words, graphs, and cartoon figures.

Drawing something like the Krebb's cycle (now new and improved since I first learned it...) is helpful for remembering it.

I drew a lot of plant parts in botany too, and all manner of things in geology and paleontology classes.



Sure, you can always look up the figures on a computer, but it's not the same as the physical memory of, say, drawing a curve.

It happens frequently in my daily life that my hands will remember something long before I can find the words.

Nevertheless, my handwriting has never been neat, and my teachers tortured me for years demanding I use cursive, or just as bad later as a teacher myself, read it.

[mainer]

4. Ha ha, I probably still have my decades-old notes with the Kreb's cycle somewhere.

There's no way to use a laptop for that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. A diagram of the Kreb's Cycle is easy

A field in Sheffield on the route of this year’s British leg of the Tour de France has been marked with a giant image of a cycle to celebrate the work of a Nobel Prize winning academic from the University of Sheffield.

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/krebs-cycle-art-tour-de-france-1.384945

[Android3.14]

5. You dang kids get off my lawn!

I chuckle at the people who lament the loss of archaic skills. The only reason they think other people should learn them is because when they learned the skill, they were good at it or enjoyed the experience.

Just think, we could still be using basal readers, slate chalkboards, card catalogs, the Dewey Decimal System, studying the Bible as our primary reading source, and dunking Susie's pigtails in the ink jar.

"a 2015 study that suggested" is hardly a reason to bring back the days of endlessly writing the cursive letters.

Thank you, St. Wozniak, for the keyboard. It liberated millions from the drudgery of cursive writing.

[LanternWaste]

7. That it is an archaic skill is unsupported by its everyday application.

That it is an archaic skill is unsupported by its everyday application... much like paper books yet outselling e-books-- both of which may be used when electricity is not available. The nail gun has neither replaced nor supplanted the hammer, merely allowed us an additional tool.

[mainer]

8. The best astronauts are those who tinkered with their cars as kids

No one really needs to know auto mechanics these days, right? Just drive your car over to the local garage where some tech-school graduate will take care of it. Then you can go back to your laptop.

But NASA discovered that among the skills that best qualify incoming astronauts is the ability to physically "tinker," an archaic skill in today's modern age of computer geeks. The ability to think in 3-D, to mentally fit parts together, to have a sense of spatial awareness, is crucial to the sort of improvisation one needs in space when things go awry.

You never know when an "archaic" skill becomes vital to survival.

[Android3.14]

9. Tinkering on machines isn't an archaic skill. Starting a Model T is an archaic skill.

And cursive writing is far less useful than general mechanical ability.

[mainer]

13. Cursive writing is far more useful to me in my job as a creative

than mechanical ability (although I wish I had that, too.)

I occasionally teach other creatives who get stuck. They can't make their necessary breakthroughs. I tell them, "pick up a pen and paper. Start playing. Scribble. Draw. Diagram." And they're amazed when they come up with startling new breakthroughs. Because that tactile sensation of pen and paper awakens something.

I just finished working on a feature film, and there was nothing as immediate as scribbling with a pen on the pages of the script.

[Android3.14]

14. I'm also a "creative" as you say, and cursive writing never helped a bit

Writing by hand sometimes helped, but the best way to start my creative juices was free-writing, keyboard or pen-and-paper. I learned cursive, and as soon as i could drop it, I did. When I write with a stylus on good ol' wood fiber, I print my words because cursive writing is too much of a distraction to creativity.

Just because writing cursive helps you is a lousy reason to force millions of children to learn a skill they won't use.

[mainer]

16. It's OK. You teach your kids ONLY what you think they need.

While I've made sure that my kids had access to every skill possible.

[Android3.14]

17. Oh pshaw! If there is one insight I have gained

Last edited Tue Jun 21, 2016, 05:09 PM - Edit history (1)

It's that a parent's opinion about their own childrearing skills is always better than their opinion of another kid's parent.

I'm sure you are like a god when it comes to preparing your kids for life. But, even combining those amazing parenting skills with a study that "suggests", is that enough reason to force all kids to learn cursive writing?

Perhaps, (and I'm just taking a wild swing here) there are other methods, even ones that actual definitive research supports, that enhance a child's ability to spell and compose sentences that are less arduous than teaching a second method of handwriting.

[mainer]

20. Hm. Your link recommends teaching handwriting.

Did you notice that?

Recommendation 3: Teach students to become fluent with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing and word processing

Level of evidence: Moderate

When basic writing skills become relatively effortless for students, they can focus less on these basic writing skills and more on developing and communicating their ideas. However, younger writers must typically devote considerable attention to acquiring and polishing these skills before they become proficient. Spelling skills can affect the words students choose because they may be less likely to use words they cannot spell. Students also need to be able to generate strong, interesting sentences that vary in length and complexity in order to convey their intended meaning and engage readers.

When a student's writing contains spelling mistakes and poor handwriting, it can be difficult for the reader to understand what the student is trying to convey. Word processing programs can make many aspects of the writing process easier for students, including assisting students with spelling and handwriting difficulties to write more fluently.

How to carry out the recommendation
1. Teach very young writers how to hold a pencil correctly and form letters

Early writing instruction should begin with demonstrations of how to hold a pencil comfortably between the thumb and forefinger, resting on the middle finger. Teachers also should show young writers the most efficient and legible ways to form each letter, regardless of whether print or cursive script is used. Teachers also should show young writers the most efficient and legible ways to form each letter, regardless of whether print or cursive script is used. Because handwriting is a motor skill, it works best to practice in multiple short sessions. Students also should apply their handwriting skills in sentences and in authentic writing activities.

[Android3.14]

22. The topic is cursive.

[Chathamization]

11. How is cursive writing an archaic skill? It's one type of writing, and writing is useful

Some prefer cursive and some prefer print. If you teach kids both, they can see which they prefer. Calling it archaic is strange when it's a common skill that many people find to be useful.

If anything, it's going to be far more useful than memorizing state capitals and a lot of other stuff kids do at that age.

[mainer]

12. I don't think any skill is archaic.

While factual knowledge may be archaic (there's always Google to help us find the correct answer.) skills aren't, because each skill we acquire, whether it's a foreign language or playing the violin, increases the complexity of gray matter.

I happen to know how to drive a stick shift. I'll probably never need it again -- but that coordination between left foot and right hand is, and always will be, there.

[mainer]

15. you are classifying archaic knowledge as "skills."

Using card catalogues and slate chalkboards and knowing the Bible are not "skills." They are merely knowledge of certain systems or facts, and they don't hone the physical/mental interface that skills require.

Learning how to carve soap or wood is a skill, and even though those uses may be archaic, that skill is transferrable when you use other tools.

[LWolf]

6. I keep hoping.

Hoping that K-5 teachers will decide that teaching penmanship is important.

It's not just that I can't read some middle-schoolers' painful attempts at writing by hand. It's that I think learning penmanship helps develop the capacity to deal with spacial relationships. A great many students who struggle with printing also struggle with organizing anything in space, on paper and elsewhere.

In middle school, I prefer typed papers. I can't require them, though, because we don't have enough computers/devices for every student in the room. That is slowly changing, and I'm sure they will be there at some point in the future. Still, not everything can be typed. It's still good to know how to write legibly and correctly, even without research to add the extra values of spelling and memory.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. "Legibility"? "Spelling"? You ask a lot.

I kept hoping my students in college would learn these skills, but alas ...

[HereSince1628]

19. I keep a wheel of paper joint tape in my toolbox to tear into saw-orders

written down in a script somewhere between printing and cursive using an old fashioned lead pencil, that is usually sharpened with a razor blade for a utility knife.

I then stuff this under the stem of my glasses or in a pocket and walk-off to which ever power saw is needed

I am absolutely sure that I could do the note taking on a smart phone, but I also suspect I'd wreck it, and afterall a smartphone isn't even as useful as a bent 10 penny nail when it comes to scratching a cut-line.

[mainer]

21. A whole host of skills kids don't need to learn:

Riding a bike -- why? They'll be driving cars.
Swimming -- why, when they live in a city or nowhere near the coasts?
Reading and playing music -- he ain't gonna be a musician, so why bother?
Speaking a foreign language --No need 'cause he's 'murican. English first.
Cooking -- he can always go to McDonald's.
Spelling -- the computer's got Spellcheck.
Read a map -- why, when there's Mapquest and GPS?

The list of "unnecessary skills" can go on and on. No need for kids to learn these things. They take away too much precious time from the things they OUGHT to be learning. Like how to get to Level Twelve on the latest video game.

[Android3.14]

24. A whole host of skills no one forces all kids to learn

Nice list and useful skills.
No one teaches how to get to level 12 in school.

[Skittles]

23. I have always typed my notes

because my handwriting is unreadable after about an hour

[markpkessinger]

25. For me, handwriting notes in classes was always a HUGE struggle . . .

. . . For whatever reason, I have never been able to write cursively both quickly and legibly at the same time. My hand tends to cramp up, and in the end, my classroom notes tended to be a lot of meaningless scribble. On the other hand, I type very fast -- around 110 wpm. I cannot tell you how many times I wish I had had the option of taking notes on a keyboard as opposed to pen and paper back when I was in high school/college.

[Kaleva]

27. Same with me

My notes were like trying to decipher the Rosetta Stone. Once I could identify some of the words I had written, I could then figure out the rest of the words out but not always. Writing long notes was a useless exercise as the first few sentences were barely legible, the next sentences contained words here and there that I could make out and the remainder were just a series of lines with bumps in them

[markpkessinger]

28. Essay tests were torture . . .

. . . not because I couldn't compose a good essay response, but because I was rarely able to finish handwriting them in the time allotted. Sometimes, a teacher could recognize where I was going with an essay, and give me credit for that. Other, less enlightened teachers would simply see an unfinished essay, and grade on that basis alone.

[Gabi Hayes]

26. the large suburban district in which I work, >25 schools, allows first graders

to use ipads, PCs, and laptops to work on various projects, as well as support exercises and games. all the way through sixth grade the peck and hunt on the keyboard, and are taught zero skills. NOBODY that I've seen up through fourth grade has the slightest ability to use more than a finger at a time per hand, with very little memory of which qwerty key goes where. they waste SO much time on finding the key, when they should be WRITING their work on paper at this stage of development, particularly in first and second grades.

it's so obvious that, if the intent is to force computer composition on children who are completely clueless as to how to employ the simplest typing skills, that some sort of instruction needs to be implemented.

however, since the advent of NCLB, there is NO time to teach the keyboarding skills that once were taught on a regular basis....just like we now have PE and Music twice a week, art once, and recess only at lunch for, effectively fifteen minutes.

thanks for the very interesting OP, by the way!

haaa. I used spellcheck for about the third time ever, and the only things that came up were 'ipad' and 'NCLB'. take THAT first grade ignoramus!

[Samantha]

29. If you want to remember something, write it down

This is one of the basic rules I learned in a business class in high school. Over the years, I have found this to be very true. I have been using computers for decades, so I am not anti-technology. There is just something very deliberate about using hand and eye coordination in a deliberate manner that I believe makes the brain tend to pull something up much easier. JMHO

Sam

[bhikkhu]

30. That's always worked for me

When I was taking some CLEP exams a few years ago, that was my basic method; I'd read through a chemistry or history textbook and write down anything I didn't know, or anything that seemed important. It worked well. But I didn't use cursive, haven't since grade school in the 70's.

I don't agree with the OP that writing in cursive is any better, or faster, or more effective somehow, than writing in standard letters.