“Hand·writ·ing: 1. writing done with pen or pencil in the hand; script. 2. A style or manner of writing by hand, esp. that which characterizes a particular person; penmanship.”[1]
Not only is cursive easier for young children to learn, but by learning it young, they will not have to unlearn print in order to learn handwriting later in childhood, when they are already burned out from school as well as moved out of the sensitive period for order and language. On the other hand, print can be learned at any time, as it is indeed “all around us.”
In addition to these factors, today as even in Dr. Montessori’s time it is observed that“it is impossible to forge a person’s handwriting.”[3] Handwriting is an art form in itself. Examples of this art form can be seen in older texts with fancy first letters of chapters and sections, the variations from culture to culture of creating various letters of the alphabet, particularly capitals. Handwritten letters and cards are still cherished by many, much more than easily written (and usually error-ridden) e-mails that fly around the planet in the billions or trillions each day.
“Even though we all use the same alphabet, the motions we make are so individual that
each one has his own particular style of writing,
and there are thus as many forms of writing as there are men.”[4]
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