Why teach kids to write in cursive?
Excerpts from a 2014 article written by Maria Konnikova, a contributing writer for "The New Yorker"
"Does handwriting matter? Not very much according to some educators. The Common Core Standards, which have been adopted in most states, call for teaching legible writing, but only in Kindergarten and first grade. After that, the emphasis quickly shifts to proficiency on the keyboard.
But psychologists and neuroscientists say it is far too soon to declare handwriting a relic of the past. New evidence suggests that the links between handwriting and broader educational development run deep.
Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it's not just what we write that matters - but how."
'When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated', said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the College de France in Paris. 'There is a core recognition of the gesture of the written word, a sort of recognition by mental stimulation in your brain. And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn't realize'', he continued. ''Learning is made easier.''
"A 2012 study led by Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University, lent support to that view. Children who had not yet learned to read and write were presented with a letter or a shape on an index card and asked to reproduce it in one of three ways: trace the image on a page with a dotted outline, draw it on a blank white sheet, or type it on a computer. Then they were placed in a brain scanner and shown the image again. The researchers found that the initial duplication process mattered a great deal. When children had drawn a letter freehand, they exhibited increased activity in three areas of the brain that are activated in adults when they read and write: the left fusiform gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus, and the posterior parietal cortex. By contrast, children who typed or traced the letter or shape showed no such effect. The activation was significantly weaker."
"In a study that followed children in grades two through five, Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at the University of Washington, demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and typing on a keyboard are all associated with distinct and separate brain patterns - and each results in a distinct end product.When the children composed text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on the keyboard, but expressed more ideas.And brain imaging in the oldest subjects suggested that the connection between writing and idea generation went even further. When these children were asked to come up with ideas for a composition, the ones with better handwriting exhibited greater neural activation in areas associated with working
memory - and increased overall activation in the reading and writing networks.It now appears that there may even be a difference between printing and cursive writing - a distinction of particular importance as the teaching of cursive disappears in curriculum after curriculum. Dr. Berninger goes so far as to suggest that cursive writing may train self-control ability in a way that other modes of writing do not, and some researchers argue that it may even be a path to treating dyslexia. A 2012 review suggests that cursive may be particularly effective for individuals with developmental dysgraphia - motor-control difficulties in forming letters - and that it may aid in preventing the reversal and inversion of letters."
"Cursive or not, the benefits of writing by hand extend beyond childhood. For adults, typing may be a fast and efficient alternative to longhand, but that very efficiency may diminish our ability to process new information. Not only do we learn letters better when we commit them to memory through writing, (but) memory and learning ability in general may benefit."
But psychologists and neuroscientists say it is far too soon to declare handwriting a relic of the past. New evidence suggests that the links between handwriting and broader educational development run deep.
Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it's not just what we write that matters - but how."
'When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated', said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the College de France in Paris. 'There is a core recognition of the gesture of the written word, a sort of recognition by mental stimulation in your brain. And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn't realize'', he continued. ''Learning is made easier.''
"A 2012 study led by Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University, lent support to that view. Children who had not yet learned to read and write were presented with a letter or a shape on an index card and asked to reproduce it in one of three ways: trace the image on a page with a dotted outline, draw it on a blank white sheet, or type it on a computer. Then they were placed in a brain scanner and shown the image again. The researchers found that the initial duplication process mattered a great deal. When children had drawn a letter freehand, they exhibited increased activity in three areas of the brain that are activated in adults when they read and write: the left fusiform gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus, and the posterior parietal cortex. By contrast, children who typed or traced the letter or shape showed no such effect. The activation was significantly weaker."
"In a study that followed children in grades two through five, Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at the University of Washington, demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and typing on a keyboard are all associated with distinct and separate brain patterns - and each results in a distinct end product.When the children composed text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on the keyboard, but expressed more ideas.And brain imaging in the oldest subjects suggested that the connection between writing and idea generation went even further. When these children were asked to come up with ideas for a composition, the ones with better handwriting exhibited greater neural activation in areas associated with working
memory - and increased overall activation in the reading and writing networks.It now appears that there may even be a difference between printing and cursive writing - a distinction of particular importance as the teaching of cursive disappears in curriculum after curriculum. Dr. Berninger goes so far as to suggest that cursive writing may train self-control ability in a way that other modes of writing do not, and some researchers argue that it may even be a path to treating dyslexia. A 2012 review suggests that cursive may be particularly effective for individuals with developmental dysgraphia - motor-control difficulties in forming letters - and that it may aid in preventing the reversal and inversion of letters."
"Cursive or not, the benefits of writing by hand extend beyond childhood. For adults, typing may be a fast and efficient alternative to longhand, but that very efficiency may diminish our ability to process new information. Not only do we learn letters better when we commit them to memory through writing, (but) memory and learning ability in general may benefit."