How cursive writing affects brain development: Although some schools spend little time on cursive handwriting lessons, studies show a connection between writing and brain development. Many would agree with first-century Roman writer Quintilianus that too slow a hand impedes the mind, However, modern education professionals seem to believe that promoting keyboard fluency will help as much to develop the minds of their students as traditional handwriting lessons once did. While students do need to be digitally competent to succeed, teachers need to continue to teach cursive handwriting according to much of the knowledge will poorly processed and inadequately learned. Cursive writing and the brain: “Theres some pretty powerful evidence of changes in the brain that occurs as a result of …show more content…
The method of physically grabbing a pen or pencil and practicing swirls, curls, etc. Activates parts of the brain that increases your vocabulary. This idea was by Iris Hatfield, inventor of the New American Cursive program. She also believes in the connection between handwriting and brain process. “Cursive improves neural connections the brain, “she writes. He stresses the physiological movement of writing cursive letters helps build in many pathways in the brain while improving mental effectiveness. This increases effectiveness may continue throughout a child's academic career. R. Shadmehr and Holcomb of Johns Hopkins University published a study in Science Magazine showing that their subject’s brains actually changed in reaction to physical instruction such as cursive handwriting lessons. The researchers provided PET scans as evidence of these changes in the brain structure. Further, they also demonstrated that these changes resulted in an almost