Seattle Times (from Minneapolis Star Tribune): In age of computers, is cursive writing cursed?
Under pressure to meet testing standards, teachers are devoting less time to penmanship practice. A 2003 survey of primary teachers by Vanderbilt University found that the average classroom gets fewer than 10 minutes a day of penmanship instruction.
While scholars and historians may bemoan the loss of handwritten letters and documents, a leading writing expert says that communication is more important than the form of writing. Kids who have trouble learning cursive might shy away from writing altogether, said Steve Graham, a professor at Vanderbilt University and author of the study on penmanship instruction.
One teacher says cursive is important: She said that learning cursive helps develop fine motor skills. She also believes that proficient cursive writers can express their thoughts more quickly and completely, and there’s some evidence to back her up: The students who wrote their SAT essays in cursive scored slightly higher than those who didn’t. Tip: Buzzworthy by Brian Chin, who still writes often in cursive