Is learning cursive handwriting beneficial?
The answer to that question is in the negative as a number of American states are taking it off their curricula and replacing it with typing so as to prepare children for the real world that is dominated by technology.
In expressing her disbelief at this exclusion of cursive handwriting, Linden Bateman, an Idaho state representative, recently said, “Modern research indicates that more areas of the human brain are engaged when children use cursive handwriting than when they keyboard. We’re not thinking this through. It’s beyond belief to me that states have allowed cursive to slip from the standards.”
Some schools have reduced the spending of instruction time on cursive writing from an hour a day to 10-15 minutes a day because for them, getting the children to be able to sign their own name and read cursive writing should suffice.
This move is not supported by studies which have shown that when kids learn to write by hand, it activates the sensorimotor memory, which in turn, contributes to being able to read much better. Studies have also shown that this skill of reading is diminished if children learn to type instead.
Although schools still continue to focus on cursive writing, this aspect is being ignored now due to the number of subjects that have to be taught and the demands of technology that is used in the world today.
Since typing will prepare kids for adulthood but cursive writing won’t, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the former will remain in the classroom while the latter is only learned in the artroom as the years go by.