Handwriting can help children learn. This is how to make the most of it.
One of the main advantages of manuscripts is that students encounter these letters in books. “Study shows that spending two years studying manuscript writing can enhance letter recognition and help make writing automatic,” White explained.
On the other hand, cursive script can be faster. “You don’t have to pick up your pencil every time,” White said, noting that students who learn to write and understand cursive scripts can better read historical documents and major resources, such as the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Some students struggle with cursive script, while others find it a welcome choice. She added: “For older kids who never had a clear manuscript but knew the letters, cursive writing can feel like a new beginning.”
Develop automation
Whether students study manuscripts or cursive writing, White emphasizes the importance of exercises until they don’t have to consider forming letters, which is what automation gets. “Handwriting only works when it’s automatic. This happens when students make each letter the same way,” she said. There are many ways to correctly form letters, but consistency is key.
White compared it to learning to ride a bike. “You’re not thinking about where to put your feet or hands,” she said. “If you’re learning to ride a bike, but every day it’s a different bike and things are in a slightly different place, you’re still going to fall off and bend your knees.”
Teachers can help students of all ages by displaying letters on a large number of paper or whiteboards while using curves, tilting, separate, crossing and connecting words. This multi-modal approach helps students view and listen to how to make letters. White also encourages students to verbally express their steps as they write to strengthen the connection between movement and letter formation. “Once the movement is automatic, they can focus on other debris,” she said.
Writing words and phrases
It is important to master individual letters, but White stresses that students should quickly continue writing words and phrases. “If students only remember how to write individual letters, it won’t be integrated with spelling and reading skills,” she said.
She suggests introducing a small group of letters and having students practice using them to read and write words. White advises teachers to avoid asking students to spell words containing letters they have not learned to write. This method can help students identify spelling – common letter grouping in English. “If children draw each letter as a separate entity every time, they won’t get the benefit,” White said.
Although handwritten instructions seem slow or outdated, White believes this allows students to give them. She recalled a student named Sasha who was very happy to write his name on his father’s birthday card. He was not discouraged when he wrote “S” backwards. Instead, he corrected himself confidently. “He put his hand on mom’s shoulder and said, ‘Mom, don’t worry. I made a mistake. I know how to fix it,” White said.
Episode transcript
Nimah Gobir: Welcome to Mindshift, a podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Nimah Gobir
Nimah Gobir: Today, it feels like everyone is looking for the next big innovation in education. The school is adopting a one-to-one technology program, with each student having a tablet or laptop. The new program promises to solve all the learning challenges you can think of. But, in all this excitement, have we forgotten the basics?
Nimah Gobir: When was the last time you considered handwriting? If you are an elementary school or a TK teacher, the answer may always be – even in your sleep. But for many of us, handwriting is becoming an afterthought.
Nimah Gobir: This is a big mistake, said Dr. Nancy Cushen White, an educator and speech therapist. She said handwriting is more than just writing letters, it is a powerful tool for literacy learning. Just because adults don’t think much about handwriting doesn’t mean that children don’t like it or benefit from it.
Nimah Gobir: Keep listening to more information about Nancy to learn about the strategies of teaching handwriting and whether to have a way out, stay tuned!
Nimah Gobir: Nancy Cushen White has spent decades trying to figure out how to teach children to read and process language in a persistent way. But the journey started with the real challenge – the challenge she didn’t even see the beginning.
Nancy Cushen White: My first year-round teaching, I was assigned to an elementary school in San Francisco, a regular ED fourth-grade class with 37 kids.
Nimah Gobir: Immediately, she realized that some skills were missing.
Nancy Cushen White: There are a few kids to read, but that’s not the norm. That was the exception, and I didn’t know that I didn’t even realize the serious problem I had at that time. I just think I have certificates in three states. I will do everything I learned and I will solve this problem.
Nancy Cushen White: I tried everything I was taught. It doesn’t take a long time and it doesn’t work very well. so. This began my search for something that worked.
Nimah Gobir: She found that handwriting was an important part of learning language. Handwriting enhances letter recognition and supports memory and recollection, especially while reading and spelling and teaching.
Nancy Cushen White: All language skills are connected. Therefore, handwriting is different from reading or spelling. Obviously, handwriting involves motor skills, but it’s not just motor skills. It’s very relevant to the language
Nimah Gobir: Usually, students are taught in school two handwriting: manuscripts, with unique letters, no connection and cursive script, and letters flow together.
Nancy Cushen White: Manuscripts are prints or manuscripts that are more like what they read in books, so there is an advantage. So when they learn to write letters, they are learning to write letters they see in the book they read.
Nancy Cushen White: There are some studies that once students who have learned to write these letters, if they see one of the printed letters, whether they write these letters or not, they, whether they write it or not, a part of their brain activates their function as they write.
Nimah Gobir: On the other hand, cursive script has its own privileges.
Nancy Cushen White: Cursive script can be faster. You don’t have to pick up a pencil every time.
Nancy Cushen White: I don’t know if it’s because of what happened when they were trying to study in school, but some people really hate it.
Nimah Gobir: This is good news for those struggling in cursive scripts – this is not used. Today some students cannot read cursive scripts at all. In fact, there is a joke that a generation of adults can use cursive script to write secret messages to each other, making it impossible for children to read. But laughing, there is a real meaning. Although students who cannot read cursive scripts are still literate, they may have difficulty reading historical documents such as the U.S. Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.
Nimah Gobir: Manuscript or draft writing has not been proven to be the best. It is important that students get so much practice writing that they don’t have to consider forming letters. So, how do you ensure that handwriting becomes second nature?
Nancy Cushen White: If they make each letter the same way each time, it will become automatic.
Nancy Cushen White: There are many correct ways to form manuscripts and cursive letters. Think of all the fonts. But it needs to be taught to children in an automated way. Then, they don’t have to think about how to make the letter. That becomes automatic.
Nimah Gobir: When students write letters multiple times, it becomes muscle memory.
Nancy Cushen White: If you are taking notes now, you are thinking about what I mean. You may be thinking about how to spell some words, but you won’t think about how to form letters because it’s automatic. Your brain knows this. It’s like jumping on a bike and moving forward. You are not thinking about where to put your feet or where to put them.
Nancy Cushen White: If you are learning to ride a bike, but every day is a different bike and things are in a slightly different place? You’ll still fall and bend your knees, or at least I’ll do it.
Nimah Gobir: One of the best ways to teach handwriting is through modeling. Nancy talks about what she was doing when she wrote a new letter. This makes it a multimodal learning experience for students as they are able to see her write the letter on a large piece of paper or whiteboard and hear her talk. Take the lower case, cursive letter “L”
Nancy Cushen White: Starting from the baseline, bend both spaces upwards, bend back slightly, then tilt downwards, crossing over the midline, almost down to the baseline, and then along the stroke of the connection, and then I might do it again. Then I asked another student in the class and told me how to make an L.
Nancy Cushen White: You want them to use these words to guide themselves as long as they need and have the same words. So use the same words of all letters, curves, tilts, separates, crosses, connects strokes.
Nancy Cushen White: But that doesn’t remember it. It does connect it to that movement. Then, once the movement is automatic, they can focus on other pieces.
Nimah Gobir: But it is not enough to just copy the letters over and over again. Students need to write words, phrases and sentences.
Nancy Cushen White: I think sometimes when it’s as a motor skill it misses this connection because it’s a language skill.
Nancy Cushen White: In the case where students only use handwriting, they learn all letters, they can write all letters, but they don’t use it functionally. They are not writing words or phrases. So they remember something, but it has no connection to something functional. This is a very important work. Therefore, most research supports it as part of this literacy network.
Nancy Cushen White: In a class, teach it slowly in order, and then have the children read and write words with these letters. You don’t ask them to spell anything they can’t write.
Nimah Gobir: When students learn to write letters with the words they spell, they begin to recognize common letter patterns and structures.
Nimah Gobir: Today, kids use computers earlier than ever, meaning they may miss the cognitive benefits of handwriting.
Nancy Cushen White: When typing, you just need to press the keys and you won’t get that kind of motor feedback. When you hit a key on the keyboard, there is no unique sequence of action to form each letter.
Nimah Gobir: Because writing is so embodied, you can create memory connections with what you see and hear. Yes, handwriting is slower, but this is actually a good thing.
Nancy Cushen White: Because I have to think about what I want to write, because I don’t have time to write everything, I actually have to focus on the content. I have to decide what is the most important thing.
Nimah Gobir: The handwriting may not sound exciting, but the kids love it. Learning to write has a great function – even if it’s just your own name.
Nancy Cushen White:There is a primary school student whose name is Sasha. His mom wrote us a note about half of it and she said his father’s birthday happened and he was writing his name. He wrote backwards a SS.
