For many kids, cursive is now equivalent to Egyptian hieroglyphics since technology took the role of pens and paper in the classroom.
Even though cursive was removed from many schools’ curricula, the art form is gradually returning as more institutions reverse the trend.
This might be partly due to a social media post that went viral, in which a teacher humiliated a seven-year-old girl for signing her assignment with loopy intertwined letters. Learn more about this pupil and the reasons why cursive is being reinstated in schools by continuing to read!
Handwriting enhances conceptual understanding, memory recall, and spelling accuracy, according to earlier studies.
Tracing out letters and words slowly really improves brain activity, giving people more time to process and learn, according to research.
“There is a fundamental difference in brain organization for handwriting as opposed to typing,” says Ramesh Balasubramaniam, a neuroscientist at the University of California. “Even when the movements are very similar, the activation seems much, much higher in handwriting. It shows that there’s more involvement of these brain regions when you’re handwriting, which might give you some specific advantages.”
Boosts brain acitivity
Our reliance on technology is increasing, and experts argue that handwriting shouldn’t be lost in the digital age.
“[Schools] need to bring in more writing into curriculum design,” Balasubramaniam says.
Supporting his opinion is a new study titled “Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom” that shows handwriting, overswiping or typing on a device, boosts brain connectivity, particularly in learning and memory.
Audrey van der Meer, a lead author of the 2024 study, explains, “When writing by hand, most of the brain is active.”
Van der Meer, who teaches neuropsychology at Norwegian University of Science and Technology, says handwriting “puts the brain in a state that helps both children and adults learn more and remember better… Typing, on the other hand, requires mechanical and repetitive movements that trade awareness for speed.”
In summary, the study finds that “the ongoing substitution of handwriting by typewriting in almost every educational setting may seem somewhat misguided as it could affect the learning process in a negative way.”
Functional illiteracy
When a number of states embraced the Common Core standards program in 2010, they were “misguided” because it does not mandate that pupils learn cursive writing.
Regretfully, the removal of cursive handwriting from the curriculum is contributing to functional illiteracy in the United States, where “hard-to-read handwriting” makes it difficult for people to complete everyday adult duties.
A startling 70% of Americans find it difficult to understand their coworkers’ notes or reports, and 45% say they can’t even distinguish their own, per a 2021 survey.
According to the report, birthday cards, thank-you letters, shopping lists, and notes to coworkers are the items that people misinterpret the most.
