Cursive-The Power of Connected Writing PART 4

PART 4: The benefits of handwriting over the still-important skill of keyboarding.

No doubt, keyboarding is a necessary part of each child’s expressive, literate future. Manual, then electric/electronic, typewriters were the first keyboards. Keyboards have been around for well over a hundred years. The difference, then, between children a hundred years ago becoming proficient on a typewriter (QWERTY and all), and children today learning keyboarding is the amount and type of handwriting and composing children learned in school before ever having an ‘adult-size-fits-all’ typing keyboard placed in front of them. One hundred years ago, children could have nearly a decade of connected handwriting (cursive) before learning typing. Times have changed and our children need to have an intimate familiarity with keyboarding for most careers they can choose. The push for keyboarding is acceptable, even necessary, but should it be done absent handwriting? 

No. In a summary of the impact on education of first learning to write by hand, Konnikova noted that children who hand-write learn more quickly, retain information better, and on average are more proficient at generating fresh ideas. Konnikova cited a psychologist who stated that we activate neural circuits when we write by hand and posited that writing creates a mental simulation of reality in the brain that allows learning to be easier (2014).

Konnikova, M. (2014, June 2). What’s lost as handwriting fades. The New York Times.