@ David Lawrence "Citation needed. It is not intrinsically obvious that cursive encourages this any more than any other course focused on handwriting would."

Fine. Here you go:

Shadmir, R. and Holcomb, H. (1997) Neural correlates of motor memory consolidation. Science Magazine, vol. 277.

Babcock, M.K. and Freyd, J.J. (1988) Perception of dynamic information in static handwritten forms. American Journal of Psychology, Spring, vol 101.

These two studies show that physically linking letters together gets students to think at the word-sentence level, rather than the individual letter level, thus increasing the speed with which thoughts can be put to paper.

Steve Graham at Vanderbilt University has done a number of studies on the positive effects of cursive handwriting on cognitive skills. In one study, 1st graders in Prince George's County who could write 10 - 12 letters a minute were given 15 minutes of instruction in cursive 3 times a week. After 9 weeks, they doubled their writing speed and their expressed thoughts were more complex. Graham also found improvements in their sentence construction skills.

Also see Carpenter, 2007; Tueling & Romero (Applied Submovement Analysis To Show The Learning Effects of Continuous Movement Patterns, 1997); Early, 1976; and Ochsner, 1990 (Physical Eloquence and the Biology of Writing) for evidence that cursive develops fine motor skills and written fluency at a faster rate than printing.

Not everybody will continue to use cursive in their adult life, but there's still value in teaching it.

David Lawrence: "As for the joke about not being able to forge notes from their parents, obviously if there parents are not using cursive either then there is no issue. Neither my wife or I use cursive."

Somehow, that doesn't surprise me.

We can't assume that the digital age will be with us forever. Email and texting depend on the widespread availability of computers, laptops, blackberries, cellphones, and electricity, which in turn depend on the easy availability of cheap oil (for extracting, refining, tooling, and manufacturing the parts needed to make these ever-more complicated electronics). Pen and ink will always be with us, but with peak oil upon us, it's hard to say whether digital technology will still be around 500 years from now. Cursive may well make a comeback.

Anyway, cursive and text messaging aren't either/or. To use an analogy, it may be more convenient 95% of the time to drive a car, but it's also nice to know how to walk for occasions when the car isn't practical or available.

I firmly believe there's still value in teaching cursive writing. It helps kids with spelling, discipline, high-order thinking, and organizational skills. It gets them to engage with individiual letters and the act of writing in a more adult way. It teaches kids that it's possible to turn a ho-hum, pedestrian activity into something beautiful through daily practice and conscious craft.

Besides, without cursive, how are kids of the future going to forge excuse notes from their parents?