Handwriting Becomes Obsolete

By SAM URETSKY

In February 2022, the National Education Association published a report on a debate among educators on the question of whether it is still worth teaching cursive writing in elementary schools. In a lot of school districts, cursive has been consigned to the wastebasket of useful skills. Keyboarding, which among other things is the preferred method for interacting with chatbots, may be the skill of the future. There are enough demands being made on the elementary schools to teach certain subjects, and avoid others (see Florida as an example) so that these obsolete techniques should be left to John Hancock and his colleagues, some of whom couldn’t sign their names legibly.

One point that didn’t seem to be addressed is that the current QWERTY keyboard may itself be consigned to the trash heap of communications alongside the quill pen, cave drawings, and Babylonic cuneiform. The “modern” keyboard dates from the 19th century and alternative keyboard arrangements have been proposed which might be easier to learn, or permit faster typing (maybe) and more accurate typing (studies have shown).

In any event, although cursive finds little use except for signing checks or birthday cards for those who still use them, there are a number of studies that seem to show that teaching writing, whether print or cursive or preferably both, benefits children’s ability to both read and write – which includes the meaning of “writing” as composition: letters to a friend, best selling novels, or Oscar winning movie scripts.

One study published in PLOS One begins “there is increasing evidence that mastering handwriting skills play an important role on academic achievement. This is a slow process that begins in kindergarten: at this age, writing is very similar to drawing (i.e. scribbles); from there, it takes several years before children are able to write competently. Many studies support the idea that motor training plays a crucial role to increase mental representations of the letters ...”

Apparently, writing is a form of multitasking – asking the brain to both form letters while also deciding what to say. Training children shape recognition, essentially learning the alphabet, is an important first step to both reading and writing in both the physical and the mental process. “The generality and modifiability of working memory” Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 1992, developed the idea of long term working memory. Learning to write is a stepwise progression – learning the shapes of the letters, learning their sounds, learning to sound out words, and finally recognizing words. Each step must be deeply ingrained in the appropriate centers of the brain. Skipping the foundational steps is, essentially, not learning your P’s and Q’s. Only when these skills are fully developed can other sections of the brain be freed to form and express new ideas.

There’s more. Technology has made it possible for a student to walk into a college lecture and make a complete recording of the lesson – with every nuance, up to and including the bad jokes and digressions. Other students, with pen and notebook, can’t keep up with the most basic cell phone – so they have to process the information, recognize what’s important and make a record as they go. A study from the Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(1), 44–49.(1999) titled Relationship Between Automaticity in Handwriting and Students’ Ability to Generate Written Text makes that clear. “The ability to generate written text requires the execution of a complex array of cognitive and metacognitive skills. “Because of the cognitive demands of this complexity, successful writers must be able to write letters and words automatically.

This article reports two studies that examined the relationship between orthographic-motor integration related to handwriting and the ability to generate creative and well-structured written text.“

A more recent study, from Reading and Writing 35:1119–1155(2022) “The Relationship of Handwriting Ability and Literacy in Kindergarten: a Systematic Review” “Following a systematic search of the literature, 17 studies involving 3343 participants were identifed. … Strong evidence was found for the impact of letter writing fluency on writing composition, and letter name and sound knowledge. In addition, there was moderate evidence for a relationship between letter writing fluency, spelling, word reading and phonological skills. Weaker evidence was found for the impact of perceptual motor skill proficiency on letter knowledge and spelling, word reading and phonological skills ....”

Yes, an article on the web site GreatSchools.org “RIP cursive: keyboarding is king” concludes “in the end, cursive — a technological skill that facilitated the use of two of the most important technological tools, the pen and paper — may live on more as art than praxis.” It may be true – society has a habit of moving in the wrong direction, but giving up the essential skills needed for literacy is a step backwards. Castaways on a desert island can at least use rocks and coconuts to spell out HELP! Do that with a keyboard.

Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in Louisville, Ky. Email sdu01@outlook.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2023

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