I actually support the idea of children being taught cursive script but not for the reasons this article discusses. I think that it is difficult to make the teaching of cursive relevant in the modern age – where a lot of communication takes places with a keyboard or through touch screens. Even the ability to sign your own name has taken on a much lesser significance in an era where digital signatures and e-wallets prevail. However I don’t think the pen is completely obsolete.
Teaching a young child to hold a pen and then to use it to create letters and words is a much closer experience to the creation of meaning through written language than tapping a screen. It is also a way to teach fine motor skills which touch screens are also not teaching children. Technology is amazing and will be very important in the future lives of today’s young people, but that does not mean, at least in the foreseeable future, handwriting won’t still have a place.
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