Life on the Road

I was interested to find an article about the importance of handwriting in Newsweek recently (read it here).

What an interesting question!

Is it true (as one comment on the article suggested), that this “finding” is simply the result of teachers’ inability to separate the two skills - and that they feel the composition is better just because it is more appealing to read?  Or is there really something to this?

I know that, in our house - and homeschool, handwriting is a huge impediment to writing.

My 13 year-old son is a font of creative composition - out of his mouth.  He will tell me all (and I do mean all!) about the story or book he is “going to write”, or the new idea he has for a computer game, and on and on. 

But to write it down?  TORTURE! 

“How much do I have to write?”  “Is this enough for today?”  “Can I use Word?”

And, it’s true, his penmanship is atrocious.  You would never guess from looking at the way he writes that he is an extremely bright 8th grader (well, maybe you would, dear reader, but I digress…).

His letters are crudely formed, the size of his text varies markedly within short periods, he switches back and forth between printing and cursive in short-answer type activities if he’s not paying attention, and I still get questions like “What does a capital Q look like in cursive?”

Then what about doctors’ notoriously messy handwriting?  It doesn’t seem to be holding them back from achievement, as a group.  Hmmm… but not necessarily achievement in literary pursuits, eh?

And what about my own situation?  As is fairly common among lefties, my penmanship has never been accused of being lovely, flowing, or … whatever.  It’s tidy, and readable, but not elegant.  In fact, I typically print when writing longhand, unless I feel required to do otherwise for some reason.  And off and on for years I have supported myself as a writer.  Sometimes with pen and paper, sometimes on the computer, but always writing … ugly cursive notwithstanding.

So at the end of the day, I’m still not clear on what to do. 

We have done cursive instruction, and I require a certain volume of work to be done by hand each week.  It does not seem to help his penmanship, and only makes the other aspects of schooling that require writing more of a challenge. 

So do I actually need to do even more, until it does improve?

Or would I, in fact, be better off allowing handwriting to be relegated to thank you notes, and allowing his creativity to be unleashed in front of the word processor?