Summit Makes a Case for Teaching Handwriting

This from Education Week: 

Handwriting still has a place in the digital age, its proponents say, and they hoped that what they billed as a "summit" on the subject this week would spotlight their case for the enduring value of handwriting in the learning process.

The Washington conference was designed to draw together research from psychology, occupational therapy, education, and neuroscience to demonstrate handwriting's role in students' physical and cognitive development, states' learning standards, and the classroom.

The occasion also marked National Handwriting Day, Jan. 23—the birthday of that most famous exemplar of penmanship, John Hancock.

Doubt about the continued worth of handwriting skill is "similar to what happened with math as calculators and computers came into vogue," said Daniel A. Domenech, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, which co-sponsored the gathering with Zaner-Bloser, a Columbus, Ohio, company that produces a handwriting curriculum. "People wondered whether students needed to learn how to do math. The answer in both cases is absolutely yes. Writing is not obsolete."

Proponents of teaching—in some cases, reintroducing—handwriting in the school curriculum say their concern over the fading importance of handwriting became more urgent with the advent of the Common Core State Standards. The standards, which were released in 2010 and have been adopted by all but four states, mention keyboarding but not handwriting.

"The conversation about handwriting instruction has been growing," said Kathleen Wright, the coordinator of this week's event and the national product coordinator at Zaner-Bloser.

The company advocates that states supplement the common core with handwriting standards, as Massachusetts and California have already done. Ms. Wright said the conference, called the "Handwriting in the 21st Century?: An Educational Summit," was timed so policymakers could address any lack of attention to handwriting while their states are still rolling out their own versions of the common core...