{"id":854,"date":"2018-01-16T19:47:02","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T02:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yycmontessori.ca\/?p=854"},"modified":"2018-01-16T19:47:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T02:47:02","slug":"cursive-handwriting-how-important-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yycmontessori.ca\/cursive-handwriting-how-important-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Cursive Handwriting: How Important Is It?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>Many of us would answer: “Very important!” While Montessorians have deliberated for years whether children should learn to write first in cursive or print, we’ve all thought cursive was an essential skill. Now there is a lively debate occurring in the field of education about whether, in this age of technology, cursive handwriting is necessary at all.<\/p>\n Cursive is not required by the national educational Common Core Standards. Many states across the country are removing or reducing cursive instruction from the curriculum while only a few states have deliberated and decided to keep it.<\/p>\n What’s the best way to respond when parents ask why handwriting is a key component of the Montessori environment? Montessori discovered the importance of learning through movement and the senses. Research corroborates the vital hand\/brain connection, proving that new pathways in the brain develop as children use their hands to explore and interact with the world. Of course it doesn’t need to be an either\/or decision: children can be computer literate\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0learn cursive.<\/p>\n Research Shows the Value of Learning Cursive<\/p>\n Fascinating new research points out the benefits of cursive writing for cognitive development. One\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0concluded that elementary students need at least “15 minutes of handwriting daily for cognitive, writing and motor skills and reading comprehension improvement.” A recent article in\u00a0Psychology Today<\/em><\/a>\u00a0cited research which shows that:<\/p>\n Learning to Write: Cursive or Print?<\/p>\n “Written language can be acquired more easily by children of four years than by those of six. While children of six usually need at least two years to learn how to write, children of four years learn this second language within a few months.”<\/em> Observers of Montessori schools are often astonished by the beautiful cursive hand of four-and five-year-old children. Montessori noted that the straight and oblique lines of printing were more difficult for children to form than cursive. The uninterrupted movements of the hand may make cursive letters easier for children to form, and for this reason, some Montessori primary classrooms introduce children to cursive sandpaper letters first. Other Montessori schools wait to teach cursive to lower elementary students.<\/p>\n Some non-Montessori\u00a0reading experts<\/a>\u00a0have begun teaching cursive before printing, because they find that cursive instruction improves literacy outcomes for many students and that “the connections between letters required in cursive writing may reduce letter reversals.”<\/p>\n Whether we begin by teaching print or cursive, it’s clear that it is a very different process to touch a key and see a letter appear on a screen, than it is to develop the skills and brain\/hand connections necessary to be able to write that letter yourself.<\/p>\n “We directly prepare the child, not only for writing, but also for penmanship, paying attention to the beauty of form (having the children touch the letters in script form)…”<\/em> In the Montessori primary classroom, children trace the Sandpaper Letters with their fingers and often draw letters in a sand tray or on an easel or\u00a0chalkboard<\/a>. As they progress, children can copy onto paper the words and sentences they build with the Movable Alphabet.<\/p>\n In the 1950s, my aunt in Nebraska had never heard of Montessori. Searching for a way to help her struggling students form letters, she poured sandy cat litter into a box and encouraged the children to draw letters with their fingers in this material. They loved it!<\/p>\n Handwriting across the curriculum is encouraged in the Montessori classroom. Older children write their own poems, stories, and research reports. One of the best ways for children to learn geography, history, science, and even math, is to work with the materials and write about it (with a pencil!)<\/p>\n\n
\n\u2014Maria Montessori<\/p>\n
\n\u2014Maria Montessori,\u00a0The Montessori Method<\/em><\/p>\n