originally posted 04 NOV 2014
My sixth grade daughter still has daily handwriting drills. She is
homeschooled. She has friends in middle school who have no idea how to
read, let alone write in cursive.
This makes me a bit sad. A number of schools are doing away with
writing and, instead, teaching keyboarding at younger ages. Don't get me
wrong, keyboarding is important too but studies have shown keyboarding
and penmanship use different parts of the brain when implemented.
Studies have also shown that children who use cursive tend to have the
advantage when it comes to creative ideas.
My daughter is dyslexic and I've read many times how important
penmanship can be for these
children. Don't get me wrong, initially
handwriting was a huge struggle and would have been easy to give up on
it but I'm so glad we didn't. I think penmanship has been important in
'retraining' her brain. With up to 1 in 5 children who are dyslexic, we
need to be doing everything we can to help them succeed.
My daughter has beautiful penmanship. Now, my son, well, eight years
of instruction and his writing looks like chicken scratch. Perhaps he
should become a doctor.
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