Handwriting vs. typing: is the pen still mightier than the keyboard?

"It is commonly asked why children learn cursive writing instead of print in Montessori classrooms. From a practical point of view, it is thought that very young children's scribbles and early drawings are flowing and circular, more like cursive writing; making it more natural to learn first. At the Casa level, children love to repeat things making it a good time to practice penmanship. Given the distinct shape of each cursive letter, there is less confusion and less tendency to reverse letters such as b, d, p, and q. In printing there can be a tendency to mix upper and lower case letters together (e.g. CaNada,) which does not usually happen with cursive letters. Cursive also seems to be a more efficient way of writing since the letters are joined together.

Another reason stems from the fact that in Montessori schools children write before they read. In traditional schools, children in the first years of school are learning to read and write simultaneously and can be confused if they are learning to write in cursive and read in print. In Montessori, when the child is three and four years old, he is learning how to 'write'. He learns the sounds the letters make, learns to recognize them and learns how to form them. Once he knows the sounds, he can put sounds together to write words with the Movable Alphabet (cut out cursive letters that can be moved about freely and combined to make words) and eventually, with pencil and paper. For children who come to school knowing the alphabet names associated to print letters, it helps that the cursive letters look different when they learn the sounds of the letters. As a further step, children learn to read. When this happens they read print letters. Once children know the cursive letters, they are usually able to easily recognize the printed letters. So, they have the advantage over children who have learned to recognize print first and do not necessarily recognize cursive letters."

I'm saying this because doing such a thing, in your case, could very well turn out to work towards making your handwriting tech compatible as well, thus eliminating that hurdle. Win-win, really.

Edit: As a further advantage, I actively think of the way I write and incrementally improve upon certain letters for efficiency and legibility. Pardon me for tooting my horn so vigorously. XD

I respectfully disagree. As someone who has had the "pleasure" of trying to grade college level assignments from best to worst: typed, printed, and then cursive as a distant last.

Cursive is faster to write, but it being more legible and neater is debatable. Obviously it varies based on who wrote the cursive or print, but broadly speaking print is a lot more consistent between individuals than cursive is.

A lot of doctor scripts now need to be printed, because cursive caused too many enquiries/bounces and incorrect prescriptions. Although bad hand-writing often comes up when the talk of electronic patient records is discussed/promoted.

Cursive's only real benefit is speed. Maybe someone could argue that it is visually "prettier" to look at (I'd agree). But in terms of productivity speed is the only main draw.

(Not that you were implying either)

I think you and the other commenter are missing my point. Like all languages that use the Roman alphabet, English has a printed form and a scripted form. It seems they're going to only teach one of the two, and for what? Typing? Typing is only useful if you use a computer, and writing is part of basic literacy.

Don't get me wrong -- I am happy I know how to type. But I'm also happy I know how to write cursive. I don't understand what they're adding to the curriculum that's so important that they are dropping cursive.

Perhaps you had a hard time reading the cursive papers, and that's understandable. But if their papers were that messy, then it seems to me that the solution is to spend more time on perfecting their cursive -- not throwing up our hands and eliminating script entirely from the curriculum.