Advocates provide the following reasons for including cursive handwriting in the elementary school curriculum: • Learning cursive writing helps students develop reading, communication, and fine motor skills. There is a direct link between the process of learning to write in cursive and the ability to read fluently. Several studies also suggest that cursive writing improves the
Research on Teaching Cursive Handwriting
Research justifying the inclusion of cursive writing in the elementary school curriculum is limited. In general, studies have concluded that instruction in cursive handwriting helps to develop students’ reading, communication, and fine motor skills and that students who complete tests and assignments in cursive may receive higher scores or grades than those who print their
Why Do Older Children Revert to Print after They Learn Cursive?
Most children in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades do not learn cursive well enough to functionally use it! The Handwriting Clinic, along with some graduate students at Texas Woman’s University School of Occupational Therapy, did a study in May of 2006 at a local elementary school. We tested 3rd, 4th and 5th graders to determine
The Dysgraphia Dilemma: Using Cursive Writing or Printing Writing?
For many children with dysgraphia, cursive writing has several advantages: It eliminates the necessity of picking up a pencil and deciding where to replace it after each letter. Each letter starts on the line, thus eliminating another potentially confusing decision for the writer. Cursive also has very few reversible letters, a typical source of trouble
