I recently heard on a TV programme, that here in the UK nearly half of the Junior schools had stopped teaching children joined up handwriting, they only teach children to print letters. The situation is the same in Junior schools in the US. The thinking behind it is that in the future, children of today will not require handwriting skills, printing is all that will be required, so the time is better spent on learning to type and on other subject areas.

Here in the UK a trial study was conducted on memory retention of a group of university students. In a prepared lecture, half the students took handwritten notes and half typed their notes in to a Laptop. In a memory test carried out a short time after, it was found the students taking handwritten notes did better in the test, showing a link between handwriting and memory.

Do you think it is reasonable to assume that joined up handwriting skills will no longer be required in the future, and they have no other benefits. That it is a good idea to stop teaching them in schools? I am not convinced that it is, what are your thoughts?

Handwriting is a lost art and soon will basically be useless in normal life.

Since the keyboard now rules and will only rule more,until its replacement comes along. But the replacement will certainly not be handwriting.


I grew up and was taught in school to write, by hand. Now?... my handwriting is terrible.. why?.. because I never use it.... everything with the exception of my signature... is typed.

kind of sad
there is something to be said
for a lovely written love letter
on pretty paper

I believe you are probably right, handwriting will become a lost art, but maybe there are downsides in to loosing this skill, as found in the memory testing of students, only time will tell.

I think there is definitely something to be said for receiving a romantic hand written letter, however good or bad the handwriting, and I remember receiving some with fragrant notepaper (probably some splashed on perfume, the tricks some women did. )

When I was learning my trade, the way I mastered the procedures was writing them out. Then as things got easier to remember, I rewrote the basics every few years just to keep on my game. I didn't type them, I wrote them in cursive.

I've written many shop manuals. Unpublished and specific to the trucks and shop procedures in place at my shop. First I wrote them, then I went back and typed them. A lot of the stuff I wrote got sent up the chain to be deployed in other shops. I literally had a hand-written tech library.

As for teaching our children cursive writing, I believe printing is all that is actually needed. Even if technology collapses they will still be able to communicate. Cursive writing is now considered an art. It should still be offered as an elective. Calligraphy is no longer a common writing style either. Its nice to look at but many can't actually read it.

I know that when I send a personal letter, I write it in cursive.
When I send a business or official reply, it is always typewritten.
My writing style is a mixture of cursive and print. I substitute some lower case letters with smaller uppercase letters and it just seems easier to read. I've been told by others that I have wonderful hand-writing but it is not established styles.

There was a time when in addition to a type written CV, a hand written covering letter was the norm when making job applications, there was an importance attached to it but maybe not so much these days. Calligraphy is seen as an art form, I have seen exhibitions of Calligraphy in Taiwan and it is the style and form of the Calligraphy that is admired, and not what it says or means so understanding it is unimportant from that perspective. I agree a hand written letter is better for personal correspondence, and you are right, those interested in learning to write will probably do so on their own if it is not offered in school.

Calligraphy is how things were written by hand in the past. It has become an art form and is admired for its form and style more than its content, now.

Cursive writing is like the son of calligraphy. Many of the stylistic form in cursive has roots in calligraphy. Loops, slants, pauses and even connection of letters in a single flow is common to both.

I remember my 60s classroom when I was learning how to write. There was an alphabet over the blackboard that showed capital and lower-case letters. We practiced making slants with tails and loops that connect. Printing was secondary. We were required to hand in our work in cursive and it was graded for legibility.

Around the 5th grade, we switched to printing. We were graded on legibility of either style but we were not required to use a certain style over another. Most of us printed.

In shop class, one of the first graded lessons was Block Printing. We were graded on how close we printed letters to the established block style of blueprints. Any deviation was considered an error.
There is no slant (italic) in block print. No loops or tails either. THIS IS BLOCK PRINT but, it is not true block print because the letters have tails at their ends. In true block print the T has the same style as a +, no tails. Basically, circles, half-circles and lines.

There are few people that use rigid writing styles. Effective communication doesn't require rigid writing styles. Often, it doesn't even require correct spelling.

that's cool tom i only had trouble with the black balloons and they just went slower.
i was taught cursive and it was used all through school. mine was always tough to read. it wasn't until i went in the service and logs were required to be in block capitals that i shifted full time to printing. i can actually do it legibly faster than i could ever do cursive.

The OP tries to make a distinction to credibility of print over cursive. It asks if we are losing something vital by switching our education systems to primarily printing.

I don't believe learning cursive is a requirement for effective communication. Personally, I believe it is beneficial to be able to read and write cursive but most schools are set up to teach 'common requirements' which allow someone to gather common knowledge so they can effectively interact with the society.

Most of the written communication in society is based on print, not cursive writing. You see cursive as an expression of style in advertisements but any "official" document is now in printed format.
Education systems are in place to support "official" society concepts.

If you look at any founding documents, they are written in cursive script. However, those same documents are also printed for the public. Times are always changing. Will there be a point in time when only scholars can read our founding documents in original form? Is that time already here?



Do you prefer this version ^^ or
This version..

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

In not teaching young children to write, other than just printing the letters, could it be that more than just the handwriting skill is lost, as was found in the memory test, where the benefit of taking notes by hand improved memory retention. There is also Hand-eye coordination, where the eye guides the hand, the practice gained in handwriting improves this coordination, whether printing and typing replaces handwriting in Hand-eye coordination training seems to be an unanswered question. However, it does appear learning to print and type will eventually replace learning to write in all schools in the long term.

Thanks to everyone for your replies and your thoughts.

I believe we strive towards whats easy or 'efficient' and what's least time consuming or most profit making. I see it as a common trend in our culture in everything from how we teach to how we work and live. I think plenty is being lost. Hopefully we will catch ourselves before we go too far.

A few selected comments interest me...


How do you figure that children are not or will not be learning how to write?
The written language encompass all the different accepted styles and serves the purpose of communication.


Writing out concepts gives me retention but that is because I have been conditioned to that result over time. If I was not conditioned to memorize by writing, some other condition would be used. I still know people that can't read or write but they do have great memories. If the memory retention studies were conducted without bias, they might find different results.
Real world observation indicates there is no association between memory retention and written language. There is however, observations of intelligence level to written language comprehension.


To associate any activity such as coordination depends on the practice involved. Cursive writing and printing both require development of the same coordination. Such coordination and skill begins the moment someone picks up a pencil and begins to draw a line with determination. Typing requires a different coordination, the ability to place a finger on a key and press in the sequence desired. Its all hand-eye coordination.


Just like learning to talk replaced grunting and pointing.
What is NOT being replaced is the act of teaching communication to the masses by instituting standards all can understand.
I see it as an advancement to understanding. You might see it as a loss of artistic expression. Both views are valid.

The thing about schools is that they try to get everyone on the same page. If you look at the world around you right now, most of it is printed. Teaching children cursive writing is out-dated considering the world they will grow into. How many practical applications require cursive language skills? How many require printing language skills? How many books are written in cursive?
How many books are printed. I have seen typeset and fonts that are cursive, the technology to print in cursive is available, why are most printed materials not cursive?
The majority of the population reads print.

There is plenty of ideals being lost to civilization.
There are times when it goes too far.

What I also know is that a civilization will not remain stagnate.
Society is an ever-changing miss-mash of concepts under common momentary agreement.
We either change with society or we become anti-social.
Thing is, we are never fully societal or anti-society.
We are a mixed bag of new and old ideas that resonates in alignment with whom we wish to be at any given time.
It is the freedom of that choice that we defend with our very lives.

Education systems teach us how to live in our current and trending societies. Cursive writing technique is a personal choice where printing is a societal norm. It is practical to the intent of society education to teach printing.

I agree here. There is no benefit to remaining stagnate, yet there are areas in which I believe our 'improvements' are anything but.

In my opinion, the brain is a valuable muscle as are our ACTUAL muscles and we do not make progress by creating less opportunity to use them. I believe all the strides to make everything easier or 'effortless' or to remove the human effort and thought that needs to be involved only 'dumbs' us down and makes us too reliant on something other than self and each other, especially when that something can be so easily controlled by a few in places of wealth and power.

But that is ONLY my opinion.

Lots more good points of view, regarding my original question, thank you.

"Do you think it is reasonable to assume that joined up handwriting skills will no longer be required in the future, and they have no other benefits. That it is a good idea to stop teaching them in schools? I am not convinced that it is, what are your thoughts? "

Whether we agree or not, children in half of our schools are not being taught to write, as opposed to print, they are loosing the opportunity to learn to write cursively to a basic standard, the next step forward from printing, which they were required to do not so long ago. Learning to type is another skill children should be taught in school as well, it should not be an either or, in my opinion. There is already evidence to show a link between hand note taking in lectures, and better memory retention than those typing notes in to a Laptop. What other benefits are being reduced if not lost in loosing this skill, maybe dexterity is another, since cursive writing is more demanding than printing in my opinion. Maybe the biggest loss is to the child, for them being unable to write cursively as they grow up.

Is it possible that the results of the study are results made during a transitioning period? The ones taking notes on a laptop already know how to write cursive?

I read and watch a lot of science fiction. Utopian ideals are common focuses of science fiction. They open the imagination to concepts that 'could' become reality.
One such concept is how future generations learn. There are a few works that suggest learning could become a mind-upload. A programmed direct induction to memory of learn skills. The matrix touched on this concept.

Human beings are technology users. Might there be a day where hand-written communication is no longer needed? That handwriting skills get replaced with interface manipulation? Our current technology is already heading that way. Touch screens, gesture manipulation, even voice commands. Think Microsoft Surface, Wii gaming, phones with voice dial/texting. These are examples of the oncoming technological changes. Pencil on paper is an example of outgoing technological changes.

Medical technology is increasing human lifespans. Its 2017 right now. There is a very good chance that children born now might live to see 2100 (83 yrs). I was born in 1961, my dad was born in 1912. I saw things as normal that dad thought were amazing. My grandchildren use phones and pads better than I. There's a very good chance that hand composed communication will be a lost art to anyone not dedicated to it. It will become a specialized form of art expression.

I think it will cause our generation to appreciate it more. As a practical application the 'art' is being slowly moved down the ladder of importance to society. Kinda like, if nobody smokes, why have an ashtray? How many ashtrays do you see in waiting rooms?

I agree, pencil and paper is giving way to laptops, and technology is moving on very quickly. However, I cannot see all parents or all schools here in the UK being in a position any time soon to give each child a laptop, and I cannot see that ever happening until a laptop is the same price as a pencil and paper.

My concerns, are children loosing out not being taught to write cursively, I am still of the opinion they are for reasons already mentioned. It was, and still is in my opinion, as important as reading and maths. In the very distant future even printing letters may become a thing of the past, who knows, but right now we all write to some extent, so all children should be taught to write cursively in my opinion, but maybe in another 15 or 20 years I will take a different view.

Kids should be taught both to write and type. We must not loose this art of writing.

I'm not really disagreeing.
My responses are because I sometimes don't consider all the pertinent information and it causes my own opinions to be one-sided.
I like reading and writing in cursive. I also know that in my life, writing cursive is something I choose to do for effect.
When I make my grocery list, I print.
Schools no longer use a quill and ink well. They used to but not anymore. I can because I was taught to by my dad. When he wrote letters he preferred a quill and ink well.
Did children lose something when schools switched from quill and ink well to ink pen? It takes refined motor skills to deftly dip a quill with just the right amount of ink. Are pens lazy?
I type this on a keyboard. I can use a mouse to do artwork. I was never taught how. I didn't take typing classes. I don't have the established typing form. Its all finger pecking but I have been doing it so long it feels natural and I am fast enough for my needs. Did I miss out on developing a skill, YES. Did I miss out on developing a skill I needed to survive and be productive in my society? NO. When I went to school, typing class was an elective, not a requirement. I chose not to take the class.
I love cursive writing. Lets face it, the art is lost in today's world. Printing is done with the fingers, cursive writing is properly done with arm movements.