How Cursive Writing Affects Brain Development
May 13, 2011 by admin
Filed under News Stories
May 13th, 2011
Helium.com
By: Matthew J. Geiger
Outside of the United States, cursive writing is taught before children learn how to print. Although many of us neglect our cursive writing skills, except to sign a document now and again, due to the advent of computer technology; however, cursive writing is both more efficient and more natural when mastered before print. Because children are developing their fine motor skills, cursive writing allows them to gradually improve their eye-hand coordination versus straight lines that strain students.
The first step in developing our cognitive abilities is the development of our fine motor skills. As our brains learn to connect our inner worlds to the external universe, we begin to recognize abstract ideas like awareness of others and perception. Cursive writing affords us the opportunity to naturally train these find motor skills by taking advantage of a child’s inability to fully control their fingers. This means cursive writing acts as a building block versus as a stressor. With a less strenuous learning experience, children can progress in their learning at a faster, more efficient rate.
Pushing a child to develop faster than what can honestly be expected may actually stunt growth or foster new issues like low self-esteem. Because print writing requires some fairly precise movements, young children can have difficulty learning, thus cursive writing helps them develop the skills they need to do more precise activities like printing. As a consequence, their fine motor skills and cognitive abilities may be more likely to develop faster, thereby, giving children the tools they need to develop more sophisticated mental tools.
At the same time, cursive writing exists to help us write with more precision at a faster rate. If a child learns to write at a faster rate, he or she may well become faster when it comes to thinking. Meanwhile, the ability to express ideas far more quickly may translate into an opportunity to explore more complex concepts. This forces our brains to work harder when it comes to coordination and cognitive abilities. Accordingly, the brain develops faster and stronger by the fact that ideas can be expressed more readily.
Moreover, cursive writing is a skill often neglected in the United States. Part of this is the result of schools teaching print as the primary writing styles first. Unfortunately, cursive writing capitalizes on our natural maturing process, thus it enables us to learn more efficiently. While we are only beginning to understand the impact of learning on our brain development, cursive writing can be quite beneficial. Not only does it help us learn, it allows to children to gradually improve their find motor skills at a stronger pace while our cognitive abilities are always improved by greater learning.
I totally disagree with some points of this…………as a teacher and as a parent. My children were taught cursive towards the end of kindergarten and full on in grade 1. Now, they can not remember how to write in print at all and one of them is so mixed up that when he writes words they are a combination of both cursive and print letters all because he was pushed into writing cursive right after learning to write in print. Children need to learn to master one before the other and I believe that writing in print should come first then cursive which should not be taught until 3rd grade. However, I am willing to consider the idea of learning to write in cursive first then print………..has there been any proven research done on this that I could look into? This concept intrigues me.
Sorry WHICH countries teach cursive before learning to print? We have just conducted our own little survey from several of us living in countries outside the US and NONE of us learnt it first. Please quote sources for your comment.
Teaching cursive first before block letters is very important because the brain disengages every time the hand and pencil is raised for another stroke especially going another direction. Giving your children coloring books is also something that will not help them develop the eye hand coordination needed for developing artists. they need to try creating the shapes and lines themselves.
This is very interesting. When im taking notes and I try to write faster to keep up it seems that my hands start to burn out like I’m limited.Also I barely remember what I write. I will start writing cursive to see if I can improve my writing speed and memory. Thank you K.T
I would like to teach my grandaughter this before she gets to the third grade
Very very interesting! Thanks!
Cursive first? Very interesting, and makes sense. My good friend has a 3 and 1 year-old. I’m forwarding this article to him right now.
Wonderful article. I plan to teach my children cursive very early on.