Raising Bookworms: Handwriting skills for children, Part 1

Today, my Raising Bookworms post focuses on handwriting and why it is important for our children to learn how to write and also for us as adults. Thank you to Kaye Lynne Booth for hosting me today.

Writing to be Read

Why handwriting is still important

As technology becomes increasingly important in our modern lives, writing by hand with a pen has become less common. Writing on a computer is easy and allows us to move text about, delete and add text, and save sections in a separate place for future use. We are also able to access our writing from a number of devices. I access my email and blogs from all three of my laptops, both of my iphones, and my ipad. This all makes writing so much simpler, so why do our education systems still focus on handwriting? Why not let the children use laptops and ipads to write?

Cognitive benefits

Writing notes by hand improves language skills. Writing by hand takes longer than typing and forces the writer to slow down their thought process and consider the words more. When you write by hand you spend more…

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Published by robbiesinspiration

Robbie and Michael Cheadle are co-authors of the Sir Chocolate series of books. We both like to write and bake.

31 thoughts on “Raising Bookworms: Handwriting skills for children, Part 1”

  3. I’m on the same page with you and Rebecca and reminded that it’s been a couple days since I practiced my handwriting. Like you, it’s been fun adding unique flourishes, especially to the new simplified American cursive alphabet. It’s rather boring. Still I’m plagued with fear of making mistakes if I write in the new journal my daughter recently gifted me. It remains empty and pristine. Thank you for this encouraging post!

    P.S. Your Reading Train appears headed for my mouth. Yum. 🙂

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    1. Hi Mary Jo, I am glad you like our train. Michael and I had such fun making that piece of confectionary. I do write by hand more than I realise. I take some notes during meetings and Zoom calls by hand. I have never found taking notes on a computer during meetings to be efficient. I get to distracted with formatting and other things on the computer. I am glad I can write and so can both my boys, even though it was a challenge for Michael to learn to write by hand because of his learning barrier.

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  4. I agree with everything but I think we are fighting a losing battle. Some schools don’t spend much time at all on cursive. The good news (or bad) is they don’t spend much time on keyboarding skills either!

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    1. Hi Jacqui, my boys are very privileged. Greg learned cursive, print and keyboard skills and Michael print and keyboard skills. Michael didn’t learn cursive as getting him to write in print was enough of a challenge. For a child that struggled, his writing is really very good and I am proud of him.

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  5. I often wonder how future generations will be able to read historical documents if they aren’t taught handwriting. It makes me sad. There’s nothing I enjoy more than writing in a journal with a favorite pen. Great post, Robbie.

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    1. Oh my, Jill, the idea of not being able to read historical letters and diaries is horrible to me. They form such an important part of my research. Greg values writing and I can remember him being fascinated by the Rosetta Stone when he was only 9 years old.

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      2. Hi Pam, Michael had his wisdom teeth out. It was a performance before hand with lung function tests and a chest x-ray plus two covid tests but he is recovering nicely from the teeth operation.

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  7. I had and still have terrible handwriting, but I still send actual notes and letters instead of typing them. My students would hand in hand written papers, which was fine with me, and they were always amazed that I could read their writing. I also am glad to be able to read old American documents as an earlier comment suggests.

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  10. As a teacher, I still make my students write on paper for a host of reasons as you know and discuss in your post. Unless students do it on their phone, reading a book for the sake of reading is becoming archaic. Breaks my heart!

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  11. Hi Cindy, you are right, kids don’t generally read much for pleasure, there are to many other distractions. I am sure the lack of proper and longer reads is hampering children’s concentration skills too.

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