Should we be teaching children to write?

Already, many people can't do cursive "joined-up" writing, only printing, which takes longer to do because it is one letter at a time, all stops and starts. Many can't read cursive writing either.
I guess it’s a use it or lose it situation. Cursive has been taught from Key stage 1 onwards for ages.

I do find that writing things down if I'm organising something complicated really helps me to concentrate and make connections. Typing doesn't have the same effect. I've heard other people say this too, so I'm not the only one.
Also writing things down can calm anxiety, this may also be the case if you type it out in Word or Notes, but the tangibility of the pen and paper seems to help.

I think it’s important to maintain handwriting.
I love getting anything that’s handwritten.
My DBs handwriting was appalling, he taught himself Calligraphy.
Now his cards are beautifully written.
In fact he wrote out my friend’s wedding invitations, after being let down by someone who was charging a hefty price.

I’m trying to picture a world that doesn’t require handwriting that wouldn’t impact on the poorest families.
All children to be taught to write using a device with a keypad?
During Covid it soon became obvious who had problems with online work because they couldn’t afford the equipment.
Whole chunks of school budgets would be needed to enable all writing to take place on a device.
Signing things? I signed on an iPad to acknowledge the gas service visit. Who knows who might have access to that signature?
Messages on birthday cards? -Type the message onto a sticky label then log in to your printer and print it off. (If you have a printer and can afford the ink.)

Definitely I believe in fine penmanship and not just computer keyboards.

Even though we do not write much nowadays, I think it is a basic skill we should all have,.
We all had art lessons at school, but most of us have never drawn or painted since. We also had music lessons, and played the recorder. Only those interested in these subjects continued with them. In the computer age, handwriting may be classed similarly but it is still a skill useful for most people.

Seems humans may have been writing for a great deal longer than originally thought.

Would be one hell of a shame if all of that history and richness ended now because we’ve become lazy.

www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a70526396/archaeologists-may-have-discovered-the-oldest-form-of-writingever/

I had a conversation with my son, who’s a professor of psychology, about this. He was horrified at the idea! He said that on practical terms, normal size keyboards are not suitable for tiny hands and there would be a need for smaller, child-friendly ones. A d do we want children to be tied to screens? Then there’s the issue of if the lights go out.

Learning to hand write develops different neural pathways from keyboard use and exercises fine motor skills. Copying by hand is important for learning to spell and again, the written word uses different pathways in the brain. Indeed, reading a paper book v reading an ebook also uses different areas of the brain and you are much more likely to retain words from a paper book than a screen. He says that if you delegate skills such as spelling and writing to technology, essentially you are outsourcing your brain, when what you need to do is keep the brain busy and active.

Good comment SueDonim

Our daughter -as per government dictum- has to teach primary children exercises to endow them with upper body ‘strength’ which apparently most children lack - in order for them to acquire the ‘fine motor skills’ necessary handwriting 😳 heaven forfend that fountain pens ✒️ make a comeback.

Writing is absolutely necessary, not only to build language skills and expand young minds with little experience beyond looking at screens, but to provide the mental agility needed to build ideas. Predictive text and AI are no help here! I do wonder if the all too regular horrific instances of young people stabbing each other is due in large part to them not having a good enough vocabulary to help them avoid violent confrontation.

I remember applying for a job many years ago, when you still applied with a letter rather than a CV, I had always been made to believe my handwritten wasn't that good so asked my then boyfriend ( later DH) to write the letter for me, I got the job and was complimented on "my" neat handwritten application , as the job involved a lot of handwriting.😂. It didn't really matter as it was mainly tickets I was writing so could do it in capital letters. I stayed nearly 8 yrs so must have been ok.

Apparently hand writing for fifteen minutes a day can also keep the brain working well and ward off dementia.

To me the personal touch of pen to paper is crucial. A typed letter, unless a business letter, would be horrible. I keep a diary, just a daily account of events, and I can’t imagine typing that, though I suppose it would be more legible if I did. I had beautiful handwriting when at school, but it has deteriorated hugely, because I am always in such a hurry to get my thoughts down. My mother said that university ruined her handwriting - all that hurried note-taking in lectures.

SueDonim

I had a conversation with my son, who’s a professor of psychology, about this. He was horrified at the idea! He said that on practical terms, normal size keyboards are not suitable for tiny hands and there would be a need for smaller, child-friendly ones. A d do we want children to be tied to screens? Then there’s the issue of if the lights go out.

Learning to hand write develops different neural pathways from keyboard use and exercises fine motor skills. Copying by hand is important for learning to spell and again, the written word uses different pathways in the brain. Indeed, reading a paper book v reading an ebook also uses different areas of the brain and you are much more likely to retain words from a paper book than a screen. He says that if you delegate skills such as spelling and writing to technology, essentially you are outsourcing your brain, when what you need to do is keep the brain busy and active.

We developed small keyboards in the 1980s for children with muscular dystrophy who had an increasingly limited range of movement as their illness progressed. We had keyboards and Makaton symbols that could be accessed by the tiniest of head movements.
If you had been present when children were able to speak for the first time through a voice synthesizer you might have a different view,
I have no problem with the Key Stage 1 requirements for learning to write by hand. As I said before, I disagree when an emphasis on beautiful handwriting gets in the way of learning to write.

I’m not sure what technology that enables children to speak has to do with handwriting.

SueDonim

I’m not sure what technology that enables children to speak has to do with handwriting.

One example would be using the tiniest of head movements to write and select words that a voice synthesizer would produce. The technology has advanced enormously since I was working in the field, but from word processors for children with dyspraxia to assistive technology for people with severe disabilities, technology enables people to write.
Would you write a 10,000 word thesis by hand?

It's not hard to imagine cyber attacks which cancel electronic communication systems. What better way for an enemy country, or a dictator, to dominate/ suppress/ control huge geographic areas; an economy; any resistance.
Or, imagine a political confrontation in which AI becomes a weapon so dangerous to civil society that a govt is forced to shut down its means of transmission. Society forced to live without internet or electronic media.

Being able to exchange and record information by writing it down, is almost as vital as being able to read. The simplest tools are paper and pencil.

Mamie
Would you write a 10,000 word thesis by hand?
Had to do two of them in my final year.

My other son, also a professor, writes his drafts longhand, so yes, he’d write a thesis. I don’t know why you are so insistent that there’s no place for ‘pretty marks on paper’.

butterandjam

It's not hard to imagine cyber attacks which cancel electronic communication systems. What better way for an enemy country, or a dictator, to dominate/ suppress/ control huge geographic areas; an economy; any resistance.
Or, imagine a political confrontation in which AI becomes a weapon so dangerous to civil society that a govt is forced to shut down its means of transmission. Society forced to live without internet or electronic media.

Being able to exchange and record information by writing it down, is almost as vital as being able to read. The simplest tools are paper and pencil.

Electronic version of Fahrenheit 451. Funny how so many dystopia fiction books are starting to look more relevant every day.

The apps that worry be most are period trackers. That has a huge potential to spy on women.

SueDonim

My other son, also a professor, writes his drafts longhand, so yes, he’d write a thesis. I don’t know why you are so insistent that there’s no place for ‘pretty marks on paper’.

If that is what people want to do then fine. Nobody is stopping them. Of course we all wrote essays and theses by hand back then. Collaborating, sharing and reviewing was a lengthy process.
As far as the skills needed for wider communication in today's workplace are concerned, I can't believe that handwriting is still high on the list. My family all have jobs that involve writing and communicating with colleagues nationally and internationally with deadlines to meet.
If all electronic communications fail I also can't see how anything would get from A to B.

Although to be strictly accurate, in later years I always typed lengthy documents!

butterandjam

Being able to exchange and record information by writing it down, is almost as vital as being able to read. The simplest tools are paper and pencil.

Quite so.

There will be many situations where this is essential - not least during a power outage.

Hand writing is a skill that should not be discarded IMO - it doesn't have to be 'beautiful', just legible.

Who dreamt that up? Of course we should all learn to read and write. Its basic.