With the latest technology now made available to children in and out of their schools, we can notice a decline in children writing by their own hands. Although, we all know very well how print or cursive handwriting has always been a valuable skill. No, we are not questioning the technology but here, the only idea is the importance of cursive handwriting for kids.
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What is cursive writing?
Any style of penmanship in which the characters are joined together and written in a flowing manner. The main purpose of cursive handwriting is to increase the speed of writing. You can practice to write both upper case as well as lower case letters in cursive.
By what age can your child master cursive writing?
Cursive writing is usually taught to children aged 8 years or considerably those in third standard. By this time, most of the kids possess the skills required for learning and mastering cursive writing. Of course, it may take a little while for your child to learn and adapt cursive handwriting but when learned, these skills are going to be beneficial in the long term.
Is writing in cursive faster than printing?
I was personally taught cursive handwriting when I was in second standard and till now I have been writing in the same way. Since I was taught this way, I write cursive faster as compared to print writing. So yes, with constant practice and over the time, you may learn to write at an increased pace in cursive as well.
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5 Things You Need to Know About Learning Cursive Handwriting
Let us discuss the five benefits of learning cursive handwriting in school. Read below:
Better reading skills
While reading, the main goal is to read the whole word at a time, instead of letters. With cursive handwriting, the focus will shift to reading the word and not distinctive letters. This will consequently move from words to letters and overall leading to improved reading. When a child writes, he/she will read the written context as an entire word and not individual letters.
Ability to write faster
One of the most advantageous things of cursive handwriting is the benefit of presenting thoughts on paper quickly and easily. This is going to be beneficial for the child in the long run as it will make it a lot easier for the student to note down the dictated notes in the classroom to his/her notebook because of his/her ability to write faster.
Prevents confusion of letters
Many students often get confused with a number of letters, for instance ‘b’ and ‘d’, ‘q’ and ‘p’, ‘f’ and ‘t’ etc. however, when you write these letters in the cursive handwriting, there is a huge difference in their directionality, i.e. the way they are formed and written.
Less chances of errors
Considering print writing, the child has to pick up the pencil from the paper for writing every next letter in a single word. This, thereby, increases the chances of committing errors which is comparatively lesser when writing in cursive.
Enforces a definite pattern of writing
When a child writes in lower case cursive writing, he/she has to start from the same beginning point. If you consider print writing, you will notice there are different positions for various letters that may start from top, down or middle. Thus, inversion of letters is eliminated in case of cursive handwriting.
What if your kid is not taught cursive in his/her school?
That’s completely alright! There are a number of schools that no longer teach cursive writing, which means there are hardly any schools left that do so. It also very much depends on where you live. Whatever the case may be, teaching cursive is not a major task. It is very much easier and you yourself can teach this to your kid. Even if it takes time, constant practice will make your kid learn it in the perfect way. The more he/she practices, the faster his/her writing speed becomes.
Conclusion
Although many people still believe that writing in cursive is more time consuming as compared to print writing because they think that joining the letters and making curves will lead to more time. Whereas, this is absolutely WRONG. Having read the things above, we all know cursive writing does lead to faster writing and reading. Considering everything discussed above, by now we all know how beneficial cursive writing is for the kids. So, what are you waiting for? Hold that pencil and begin with the practice right now!
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