East Stroudsburg still values teaching cursive to students| Something to Think About

Writing in cursive is said to be a lost art.

Not so fast.

Handwriting has a bigger place in today’s education of students than many of us would think.

Last week I focused on information about spelling and today’s teaching form from a recent Education and Resource Committee meeting at East Stroudsburg Area School District. What became a companion part of spelling is the impact that handwriting has to a student’s success. Once again, I will pass on information that was shared at that meeting.

Jennifer Moriarty (Assistant Principal from East Stroudsburg Elementary) addressed the importance of handwriting. She made the connection between spelling and handwriting. In this district, cursive handwriting is taught starting in third grade and in kindergarten and first grade, educators explicitly teach handwriting in the formation of letters.

Last week's 'Something to Think About': Today's students will learn spelling in a more modern way

This instruction includes not only how to write letters, but often even the correct way in which to hold a pencil or pen.

Also addressed was the importance of handwriting automaticity (in this case meaning: the quality or fact of being performed involuntarily or unconsciously, as a reflex or ingrained habit) and how it affects reading and writing.

It was stressed that writing is a powerful communication tool. In today's digital age, effective writing is critical for personal, professional and academic successes and it is an integral part of everyday life.

Concerns about student’s writing achievement have been identified across cultures and languages of instruction. Research suggests that students exhibiting writing difficulties in early years of schooling may be the explanation for poor quality writing when they get into upper primary and high school.

Students spend very little time writing and being taught how to write.

Growing bodies of research argue specific cognitive benefits of handwriting during early childhood, including brain development, working memory (the ability to maintain information while completing tasks), translation of thought to script, and just overall writing quality and production.

When writing, the translations of ideas rely heavily on the writer’s ability to retrieve alphabet letters from memory and produce letter forms efficiently, legibly, and automatically.

Students lacking handwriting automaticity have limited ability to engage in other aspects of writing, including vocabulary selection, ideation, and revision. The lack of handwriting fluency also affects students’ motivations for writing and ultimately academic success in the future.

More from Debbie Kulick: Monroe County school districts need teachers

Educators know that letter production builds tactile or sensory and word memory that substantiates alphabetic knowledge. For students with difficulty learning, handwriting can help them keep their thoughts together since there is not the need to lift the pencil or pen to form the next letter.

Central cornerstones that are needed for those higher-level reading skills, including comprehension, and decoding. Also increasing the time that teachers in the district spending on writing will have a positive effect on students’ primary reading outcomes.

Backing up the importance of cursive handwriting beyond the meeting information is that of one Université de Montréal study suggesting that children who have cursive writing practice may receive a significant boost to critical reading and writing skills. The study points to three specific skills that will be affected and improved.

First the child becomes a better speller, be able to form words more easily and finally, become a better overall writer.

Perhaps the old saying, “what is old becomes new again” may apply here, but today, it appears we all can understand why.

— Debbie Kulick writes a weekly news column for the Pocono Record, and serves on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic as an EMT.

This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: This public school in the Poconos still teaches cursive writing