LAFAYETTE, IN (GNS) -- It seems reading, writing and arithmetic in Indiana schools will soon become reading, keyboarding and arithmetic.
Cursive writing is going the way of quills and ink wells since state officials announced last week that cursive will no longer be required teaching.
Instead, Hoosier students will spend more time learning to use keyboards -- as if they needed more practice with all their texting and Internet surfing.
State education officials left it up to individual schools whether cursive will be taught. Certainly, learning to make letters from flowing lines takes hours of practice and precious school time.
In a practical sense, there isn't much demand for cursive writing in a world of computers, and signatures likely will soon be replaced by bio-identification such as thumb scans.
Heck, autograph collecting might be a dying hobby in a few years, since celebrities won't have a clue as to how to sign their names.
Indiana's not the first to save its students from writing cramps in favor of carpal tunnel syndrome. Forty states now have shed cursive from their curriculum.
But before we dismiss cursive writing as obsolete, perhaps some input about the side effects of the discipline deserve a second look.
The LA Times published a story on the subject on June 15. It's found at www.latimes.com/health/sc-health-0615-child-health-handwriti20110615,0,6747963.story
"Emerging research shows that handwriting increases brain activity, hones fine motor skills, and can predict a child's academic success in ways that keyboarding can't," the story noted.
"For children, handwriting is extremely important. Not how well they do it, but that they do it and practice it," Karin Harman James, an assistant professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University told the Times. "Typing does not do the same thing."
Apparently, learning long-hand letters has benefits for children.
"IU researchers used neuroimaging scans to measure brain activation in preliterate preschool children who were shown letters," the Times reported. "One group of children then practiced printing letters; the other children practiced seeing and saying the letters. After four weeks of training, the kids who practiced writing showed brain activation similar to an adult's, said James, the study's lead researcher. The printing practice also improved letter recognition, which is the No. 1 predictor of reading ability at age 5."
The Times piece noted that cursive writing is faster than keyboarding, a point experienced by any seasoned journalist. That speed also would come in handy for college students taking notes in class, assuming they'd be willing to put away the laptops and turn off the recorders.
Handwriting improves memory and opens up new pathways and circuits in the brain, the Times reported.
It's not likely that Indiana officials will reconsider their decision, but given the research, it appears that it might be in the best interest of children for parents to teach cursive writing at home.
(Lafayette Journal Courier)