Should Handwriting be Taught in School?

[Proudfeet]

I'm curious as to how much illegible handwriting is due to lack of effort rather than poor technique. People with better technique might get away with not needing as much effort to ensure legibility, but I'm pretty sure most people with supposedly illegible handwriting are able to write legibly if they want to.

[Jo498]

Of course it is sloppiness and speed most of the time.

I do not want to suggest that handwriting should be graded (as it was in former times) or that a particular method/style is the best.

But I am pretty sure that if one is not taught connected letters at a rather young age one will never be any good at it. Apart from other benefits I believe being able to write connectedly and legibly has I do not see a point to close this window of opportunity to save an hour or so a week for the first one or two grades (or whatever the amount that would be spent on this stuff).

It is similar to many other things like long division or learning to draw precise squares or triangles on blank paper or construct stuff with compass and straight edge. It trains a lot of skills besides the explicit goal. (And I certainly write more by hand than do long divisions by hand in my adult live.)

[DeathYon]

My handwriting isn't very good, I'd say it's average to below average.

With that said, I think that it is important for children to learn how to write coherently.

Cursive shouldn't be compulsory though.

[Which Tyler]

I'm still not seeing this equivalence between joined up handwriting, and long division. LD teaches the underlying basis behind division, so that you understand it rather than regurgitate. Joined up hand writing doesn't teach any underlying basis for how language works, and no better than print for how the written word works - quite honestly, Latin helps that far, far more.

IMO joined up handwriting is no more useful than calligraphy, fine for those who want it, but no real benefit over print handwriting.

[eyenon15]

I've done a lot of writing in my life in both print and cursive.

Only time I do any typing it's really short stuff like emails or social media stuff. I'm ashamed to say I'm a 1-2 finger typer.

Since smartphones I'm now mainly a one thumb typer.

For me, I don't think either way is much faster. But I seem to have more stamina while writing in cursive. Idk if that means anything. Hours of writing print makes my hand cramp up but I can go all day in cursive.

[Jo498]

I completely agree that long division and Latin (as an example of a systematically learned foreign language) are more important. The comparison only touched on the practical usefulness which may be less than for cursive writing.

Connected writing is admittedly not an intellectual skill (reading it may be cognitive in a wide sense). It seems more a practical and a motoric skill.

Again, it may be a bad analogy. But I remember that as a teenager in the 80s I read an article that two skills young children used to be proud to have mastered would vanish or become marginal within a few years: tying shoelaces and reading analogue clocks and watches. Because in the 80s digital watches and velcro fasteners were all the rage. The prediction was wrong. Most shoes still have laces and many watches are analogue.

Or driving stick shift. I am not for articially helping obsolete skill to survive. But it seems obvious that it requires (sometimes only a little) more skill to write connected, to tie laces, to drive stick shift. And those skills seem more inclusive, because everyone who has mastered them will also be able to do the easier variant. More versatile and resilient and less dependent on external gadgets is better, especially if the skill is not very difficult and was mastered by almost everybody until a few years ago.

[Stego]

Awful waste of time.

[Weeping Sore]

As long as they still learn to play recorder, knit, and find gnomes, I'm not too concerned about cursive.