Teaching perfect strokes and proper curves no longer tops teachers’ lesson plans.
With smartphones and tablet computers, cursive writing has become increasingly “old school” and is treated as nostalgia.
In many schools, especially in the United States, the skill has been consigned to history’s landfill along with long division and dedicated computer labs.
However, while Canadian teachers are using more technology in their classrooms, many think that basic handwriting skills are still necessary for students to be successful both at school and in life.
Jasmin Marshman is principal of James Thomson Elementary School and is one of those educators who is not ready to throw the skill out just yet.
“Just because the world is increasingly digital doesn’t mean that pen and paper have less value,” said Marshman. “It’s important to not dismiss stuff that’s been done in the past just because no one handwrites letters or essays anymore.”
In the BC school curriculum handwriting is introduced in grade three and then treated as a unit in subsequent years.
As a teacher, Marshman had her students learn and practice cursive because it gave them an alternative to printing.
“I always used handwriting in my class because it gave students another option for written output,” she said, adding, “We’re not expecting perfect penmanship like they used to.”
Printing doesn’t allow some students to get their thoughts out fast enough, particularly boys, she said.
Marshman noticed that by about grade five children have decided whether they prefer printing or handwriting. “They get excited and feel successful when they realize they’re a better handwriter than printer.”
If students do not learn cursive, they may be missing out, she said. “You may not need to be able to write it, but in terms of literacy you must be able to read it. I think it needs to stay in the curriculum just to help the kids to be prepared for whatever they are faced with.”
At James Thomson, Marshman and the teachers make sure that students can see both printed and handwritten examples of the alphabet.
At the elementary school level, students have not developed their keyboarding skills enough to protest if teachers require assignments to be written out, instead of typed. She added that students at the school have not rejected learning handwriting and view it as a quiet activity they can work on after they complete their work.
In addition to helping students develop their fine motor skills, the kinetic movements of writing a word out can help spelling, Marshman said.
“Printing is broken up with individual letters,” she said. “Forming language with handwriting makes it a lot clearer for some kids. The word almost becomes a picture in itself—it’s all connected and it flows.”
