Handwriting Matters

Basia Practicing Strokes, 2014

The research shows that:

“For children, handwriting is extremely important. Not how well they do it, but that they do it and practice it,” said Indiana University Professor Karin Harman James.
Indiana University researchers found that those children who printed letters in a four-week study, rather than saying them, showed brain activity more similar to adults.
The printing practice also improves letter recognition, which is the No. 1 predictor of reading ability at age 5.
Handwriting is faster. Researchers who tested second-, fourth- and sixth-graders found that children compose essays more prolifically - and faster - when using a pen rather than a keyboard. In addition, fourth- and sixth-graders wrote more complete sentences when they used a pen, according to the study, led by Virginia Berninger, a University of Washington professor of educational psychology who studies normal writing development and writing disabilities. Her research has also shown that forming letters by hand may engage our thinking brains differently than pressing down on a key.
Handwriting aids memory. If you write yourself a list or a note - then lose it - you're much more likely to remember what you wrote than if you just tried to memorize it, said occupational therapist Katya Feder, an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa School of Rehabilitation.
Good handwriting can mean better grades. Studies show that the same mediocre paper is graded much higher if the handwriting is neat and much lower if the writing is not.
Legible cursive writing averages no faster than printed handwriting of equal or greater legibility. The fastest, clearest handwriters are neither the print-writers nor the cursive writers. The highest speed and highest legibility in handwriting are attained by those who join only some letters, not all of them – making only the simplest of joins, omitting the rest, and using print-like shapes for letters whose printed and cursive shapes disagree.
Handwriting proficiency inspires confidence. The more we practice a skill such as handwriting, the stronger the motor pathways become until the skill becomes automatic. Once it's mastered, children can move on to focus on the subject, rather than worry about how to form letters.
Handwriting engages different brain circuits than keyboarding. The contact, direction and pressure of the pen or pencil send the brain a message. And the repetitive process of handwriting "integrates motor pathways into the brain," said Feder. When it becomes automatic or learned, "there's almost a groove in the pathways," she said. The more children write, the more pathways are laid down. But if they write them poorly, then they're getting a faulty pathway, so you want to go back and correct it," Feder said.

Check sources of research

ttp://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED056015 https://www.hw21summit.com/media/zb/hw21/files/H2937N_post_event_stats.pdf

http://www.theblaze.com/user/kategladstone/

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ball/cursive-handwriting-philip-ball/#.Uz5CeqhdWSo

http://www.northjersey.com/opinion/the-record-letters-nov-23-2012-1.458958

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/sc-health-0615-child-health-handwriti20110615,0,3040007.story#ixzz2xtHy1j9i

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

It is an English-language pangram - a phrase,

That contains all of the letters of the alphabet.

To practice your handwriting use materials listed below. You can also check my other post about proper handwriting http://slpzone.blogspot.com/2014/04/how-to-improve-handwriting.html