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“Unlike some European countries such as Italy and France that teach cursive writing from the beginning of formal schooling, in the United States manuscript writing (printing) is taught from kindergarten to second grade, and cursive is not introduced until third grade; and typically cursive writing is not taught after fourth grade. Thereafter, most children use only manuscript printing or a mix of manuscript and cursive (Graham, Berninger, & Weintraub, 1998)” (p.495).
“Alphabetic languages with grapheme-phoneme correspondences may have been invented because writers discovered that written symbols associated with speech sounds require less brain resources and can be produced more efficiently (i.e., requiring activation of fewer brain regions and needing less energy to function). This link between letter writing and phonological access may explain why children improved in reading real words and orthographic coding when taught word decoding and letter writing in tandem compared to when taught decoding alone without letter writing instruction (Berninger, Dunn, Lin, & Shimada, 2004; Dunn & Miller, 2009). Automatic letter writing, with its automatic access to phonology (lexical names and sublexical phonemes) may also facilitate learning of word spelling” (p.511).
“Understanding writing development is complex because writing brains are dynamically constructed as brains interact with the environment (Berninger & Richards, 2002; James & Gauthier, 2006). In addition, writing involves many other cognitive processes besides transcription (Alamargot & Chanquoy, 2001; Fayol, 1994, 1999, 2008; Fayol, Jisa,&Mazur-Palandre, 2008; Hayes, 2009; Hayes&Chenoweth, 2006; Hayes & Flower, 1980). However, transcription, including handwriting, is necessary for translating higher-order cognitive processes to spell words and create written text. The brain is a mediating variable during handwriting, spelling, and composing, but other child variables (e.g., interest and motivation) and environmental variables (e.g., instruction) also matter in writing acquisition (Berninger & Richards, 2009). Explicit instruction in letter writing helps developing writers learn to spell words, which are used to communicate ideas and construct the written text to express and elaborate upon ideas (Berninger & Fayol, 2008; Berninger et al., 2009b, c; Hayes, 2009; Hayes & Berninger, 2009). Handwriting is not merely a mechanical, motor skill, but rather a brain-based skill that facilitates meaning-making as writers externalize their cognitions through letter forms, the building blocks of written words and text” (p.512).
Todd, L. R., Berninger, V.W., Stock, P., Altemeier, L., Trivedi, P., & Maravilla, K. R. (2011). Differences between good and poor child writers on fMRI contrasts for writing newly taught and highly practiced letter forms. Reading and Writing, 24(5), 493-516.
“Fourth graders with learning disabilities in transcription (handwriting and spelling), LD-TD, and without LD-TD (non-LD), were compared on three writing tasks (letters, sentences, and essays), which differed by level of language, when writing by pen and by keyboard. The two groups did not differ significantly in Verbal IQ but did in handwriting, spelling, and composing achievement. Although LD-TD and non-LD groups did not differ in total time for producing letters by pen or keyboard, both groups took longer to compose sentences and essays by keyboard than by pen. Students in both groups tended to show the same pattern of results for amount written as a larger sample of typically developing fourth graders who composed longer essays by pen. Results for that sample, which also included typically developing second and sixth graders, showed that effects of transcription mode vary with level of language and within level of language by grade level for letters and sentences. However, consistently from second to fourth to sixth grade, children wrote longer essays with faster word production rate by pen than by keyboard. In addition, fourth and sixth graders wrote more complete sentences when writing by pen than by keyboard, and this relative advantage for sentence composing in text was not affected by spelling ability. Implications of the results for using computers for accommodations or specialized instruction for students with LD-TD are discussed.
Berninger, V.W., Abbott, R.D., Augsburger, A., & Garcia, N. (2009). Comparison of pen and keyboard transcription modes in children with and without learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 32(3), 123-141.
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American Handwriting Analysis Foundation Launches 'Campaign For Cursive'.
PR Newswire (Jan 22, 2013)(407 words)
Group Hopes to Bring Recognition to Teaching of Cursive Handwriting on National Handwriting Day, Jan. 23, with Launch of their New Website, Campaign for Cursive
VENTURA, Calif., Jan. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 40 states have removed the requirement for handwriting training from the core curriculum of public schools. This might not sound like much of a problem in the digital age, where we spend so much time keyboarding; however, there are serious consequences to losing the skill of penmanship.
Mexico suffered those consequences when, in the 1980s, its president abolished handwriting training from schools. Some twenty years later, education officials realized that handwriting was to the children's benefit and in 2000 re-introduced it into the curriculum.
Recent research at the University of Washington reveals that areas of the brain having to do with learning, language, and working memory "light up" during cursive writing in ways that they do not with keyboarding or printed writing. Thus, public school children in the US who don't learn handwriting are at a disadvantage when compared to children in Mexico, or those who attend US private schools, for whom teaching handwriting is still seen as important.
The American Handwriting Analysis Foundation (AHAF), a 48 year-old non-profit organization, is encouraging the return of cursive handwriting to the US public school system. On January 23rd, National Handwriting Day, they will launch a new website, Campaign For Cursive . "The website will promote awareness of the need to keep handwriting in the curriculum, and show kids that handwriting is cool," stated Sheila Lowe, President of the AHAF .
The group is supporting Senator Jean Leising of Indiana, whose bill to return cursive writing to the curriculum is scheduled for a vote on Wed., Jan. 23. "Child psychologists, doctors and researchers have used neuro-imaging scans to show finger movement associated with handwriting activates regions in the brain linked to cognitive, language and even motor processes. In other words, cursive writing isn't just a good ability to have. Instead, we are now hearing that handwriting skills are crucial for success in school, basic development and learning potential in general," stated Senator Leising in an email.
For more information, contact: Gayna Scott, Campaign For Cursive Chair:gayna@, Sheila Lowe, President of AHAF: sheila@, (805) 658-0109.
SOURCE American Handwriting Analysis Foundation
Source Citation
"American Handwriting Analysis Foundation Launches 'Campaign For Cursive'." PR Newswire 22 Jan. 2013. Culinary Arts Collection. Web. 21 Feb. 2013.
Document URL
Gale Document Number:A315937517QQ[pic]
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Volume 17, Issue 2, February 2013, Pages 56–57
Write to read: the brain's universal reading and writing network
• Charles A. Perfetti1, 2, [pic],
• Li-Hai Tan1, 2
Do differences in writing systems translate into differences in the brain's reading network? Or is this network universal, relatively impervious to variation in writing systems? A new study adds intriguing evidence to these questions by showing that reading handwritten words activates a pre-motor area across writing systems.
Because the invention of writing is recent in human evolution, reading benefited from no special foothold on the human brain, which instead reorganized tissue that evolved for other purposes [1]. Accordingly, the idea of universals in reading has a distinctly different flavor from corresponding ideas of language or perceptual universals, which can be linked to specific neural foundations. To span across writing systems, orthographies, and scripts, which are highly variable in visual form, any universals in reading must be mainly inherited through the dependence of reading on language, especially a phonological system that is engaged by reading across writing systems [2].
The neuroscience of reading has yielded evidence for networks that are both universal and partly specific to language and writing system 3 and 4. The universal network includes a left occipitotemporal (OT) region that becomes especially responsive to word-like forms in both alphabetic and nonalphabetic writing, thus earning the designation visual word form area (VWFA). This area, which links visual word recognition with more anterior and superior language areas in the temporal and frontal regions, is supplemented by the recruitment of areas that are especially responsive to the specific demands of the writing system, for example, a network of temporoparietal areas that support the conversion of alphabetic writing to phonology and distinctive parietal and frontal regions that are especially activated in reading non-alphabetic Chinese [3], which maps graphs to language at the morpheme and syllable level, rather than the phoneme level. Thus, reading can be characterized as supported by universals with writing system variations [4].
A new neuroimaging study adds highly original evidence concerning universals vs specialization [5]. Nakamura et al. demonstrate that for both French and Chinese two tightly linked neural subsystems together form a universal network that rapidly yields word meaning for handwritten words. The first of these subsystems comprises the left OT area, identified in many studies of reading. The second (Exner's area) is a left frontal pre-motor area that is involved in handwriting.
The study exploits the repetition priming effect, in which a target word is preceded by a briefly presented (for 50 ms) and masked prime word, either identical or unrelated to the target. Behaviorally, repetition priming produces faster decision times. Neuronally, it produces a lower level of brain activation (response adaptation). Critical is the visual presentation of the target word in cursive writing rather than print. The target (e.g., train) appears in all-at-once (static) form, in letter-at-a-time forward sequences that mimic normal handwriting, or in reversed sequences that violate the normal order. The prime is always in normal static cursive. Orthogonally, the target word appeared either normally spaced or distorted (Figure 1). The key result is a double dissociation between the brain areas responsive to the two stimulus factors. Distortion affected activation in the left OT/VWFA, but not in the left premotor Exner's area. Normal vs static and reversed cursive writing affected the left premotor Exner's area, but not the left OT/VWFA. These effects were the same for French and Chinese, leading to the central conclusion that there are two intimately connected subsystems for reading, one for word shape and one for handwriting gestures, and that these two subsystems are universal.
Figure 1. Each target word was displayed as a simulated handwriting sequence in a normal sequence of movements (forward direction) or in a reversed sequence of movements (backward) direction. Independently, the display could be in normal or distorted layout, in which the letters (French) or strokes (Chinese) are squeezed together. The distortion manipulation affects word shape recognition, and thus the processing in the Occipital–Temporal cortex and the VWFA. The trajectory manipulation affects the processing of hand–gesture cues produced by normal writing and thus the processing of writing gesture in Exner's area.
Reproduced, with permission, from [5].
Figure options
These intriguing results are important in two ways. First, they show a gestural component in reading hand written words, a reading analogue to gesture-based speech perception [6], which may involve specific articulatory motor activation [7]. This conclusion is consistent with behavioral experiments that suggest that written Chinese characters are perceived as sequences of strokes [8]. Writing-on-reading effects also are found in motor and pre-motor areas when English speakers learn Chinese characters through writing them [9].
A second conclusion is that the writing-responsive subsystem and the shape-responsive subsystem are universal. There were hints of language differences, including stronger Chinese effects in areas of BA9 that overlap with those identified in previous research as more active during Chinese than alphabetic reading [3]. These language differences were downplayed because they did not survive a p < 0.05 threshold corrected for multiple comparisons in the whole brain-based comparison of Chinese and French subjects – perhaps a rather stringent test given prior results.
However, the general conclusion about universals does capture language differences: ‘…cultural effects in reading merely modulate a fixed set of invariant macroscopic brain circuits, depending on surface features of orthographies’ ([5], abstract). This conclusion parallels the claim that all writing systems universally engage phonology, but orthographies shape important details that matter for reading [2].
Where does handwriting fit in this perspective? The identification of a gestural subsystem as universal is an exciting discovery. However, it does not reflect the theoretical bases of universal reading, which lie in the language constraint that all writing encodes language rather than meaning. Instead, it adds a gesture system that universally provides non-language motor support for reading handwriting, probably not functional across orthographic inputs, for example, computer type fonts. Its discovery does not directly address the systematic variations identified in other research 3, 4 and 10. These studies identified the LH word identification function (the ‘shape’ system of Nakamura et al.), without observing activation of Exner's area in the reading of computer printed fonts. They also identified some areas whose degree of involvement depends on the writing system. These distinctive areas seem to involve more than the visual appearance of the graphs, reflecting how the writing system maps graphs to linguistic objects, including phonology. Whether one considers these departures from universality as macroscopic or microscopic [5] seems a subjective matter for now. More research with more languages, orthographies, and scripts will help converge on a big picture that also has the little pieces right.
Intriguing beyond this question of universals is the implication that handwriting is a powerful procedure for establishing written word form knowledge in both native [5] and second language learning [9]. Whereas writing may be more integrally a part of Chinese literacy, it can play a role in alphabetic reading, at least as long as writing remains part of literacy practice. Indeed, it is remarkable that handwriting effects can be observed for alphabetic readers whose use of handwriting may be more a childhood memory than a regular feature of their adult literacy.
o ReferencesQQ1
o S. Dehaene, L. Cohen
o Cultural recycling of cortical maps
o Neuron, 56 (2007), pp. 384–398
o [pic]QQ2
o C.A. Perfetti
o The universal grammar of reading
o Sci. Stud. Read., 7 (2003), pp. 3–24
o [pic]QQ3
o L.H. Tan et al.
o Neuroanatomical correlates of phonological processing of Chinese characters and alphabetic words: a meta-analysis
o Hum. Brain Mapp., 25 (2005), pp. 83–91
o [pic]QQ4
o D.J. Bolger et al.
o Cross-cultural effect on the brain revisited: universal structures plus writing system variation
o Hum. Brain Mapp., 25 (2005), pp. 92–104
o [pic]QQ5
o K. Nakamura et al.
o Universal brain systems for recognizing word shapes and handwriting gestures during reading
o Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 109 (2012), pp. 20762–20767
o [pic]QQ6
o A.M. Liberman et al.
o Perception of the speech code
o Psychol. Rev., 74 (1967), pp. 431–461
o [pic]QQ7
o F. Pulvermuller et al.
o Motor cortex maps articulatory features of speech sounds
o Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 103 (2006), pp. 7865–7870
o [pic]QQ8
o G. Flores d’Arcais
o Order of strokes writing as a cue for retrieval in reading Chinese characters
o Eur. J. Cogn. Psychol., 6 (1994), pp. 337–355
o [pic]QQ9
o F. Cao et al.
o Writing affects the brain network of reading in Chinese: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study
o Hum. Brain Mapp. (2012)
o [pic]QQ10
o W. Hu et al.
o Developmental dyslexia in Chinese and English populations: dissociating the effect of dyslexia from language differences
o Brain, 133 (2010), pp. 1694–1706
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Cursive Writing: Are Its Last Days Approaching?
Supon, Vi. Journal of Instructional Psychology[pic]36. 4[pic] (Dec 2009): 357-359.
Indicators are that technological advances and state-mandated tests, in addition to other variables, are forcing cursive writing to become a casualty of the American educational landscape. It behooves us to examine the historical, practical, and essential aspects relative to cursive writing.
We no longer use hand cranks to turn down the windows in vehicles. All types of vehicles are now manufactured using electric windows. Then, "why do we force our children to write in a systemized loopy script that is rather difficult to decipher and leaves many adults with knots the size of walnuts on their knuckles?" (Rufo, 2004, p. 4). The digital age of technology increasingly threatens cursive writing because of computers, instant text messaging, e-mails, faxing, and employment applications. State-mandated tests and limited classroom time have also impacted cursive instruction and writing. In many states, cursive writing "varies from district to district and school to school" (Nix, 2008, p. 1). It is time to explore the concerns of cursive instruction. It behooves us to examine the historical, practical, and essential aspects relative to cursive writing.
Historical
Previous generations used cursive writing as an indicator of an educated individual. It was a form of communication . According to Marge Rea, "In 1904, handwriting was considered the most important thing. Before typewriters, everything was handwritten: land deeds, legal paperwork, orders and business records" (as cited in Yackley, 2008, p. 1). The cursive form was often used ornamentally for various types of certificates and diplomas . Further, Tamara Plakins Thornton in Handwriting in America: A Cultural History (1996, p. 41) points out that during the colonial period cursive writing occurred as "self-presentation but not self-expression." She also relates that male handwriting indicated a gentleman's integrity while for women it was a form of artistry.
Practical
In the era of computers and standardized testing, how practical is cursive writing?
As Carpenter explains:
The Palmer and Zaner-Bloser penmanship methods ruled the day for decades. Students spent 45 minutes every day on handwriting. Penmanship was a separate grade on report cards. Today, handwriting instruction might get 10 or 15 minutes a few times a week. Keyboarding skills are taught much earlier, now. (2007, p. 3)
With decreasing instruction time to teach students cursive writing, another practical aspect is legibility. Elementary students are taught cursive either in the latter part of second grade or in third grade . Letter configurations change dramatically. For example , the letter "S" in (manuscript) block print is one style; in cursive it is another style. Students have to learn a new set of alphabet letters (both upper and lower case) , connect those letters to make words, write sentences, develop paragraphs and execute essay s . Usually by fourth grade , there is no continuity in cursive instruction. What are we doing to our diverse classrooms of students? In reality and practicality, the results are mixed writing methods: difficulty in deciphering words , writing projects lacking logical writing/comprehension, and loss of instructional time.
Another practical concern is lefties. "Learning cursive the 'right' way can be a nightmare for lefties. The most common problem is the left wrist hooking around as the child writes, which can be uncomfortable and lead to poor penmanship" states Hudson (1999, p. 1). While lefties have greater challenges, other students may also have difficulty.
With the inclusionary classroom composed of identified students, along with ESL (English Second Language) and ELL (English Limited Language) students, cursive writing instruction can be problematic . Teachers have IEPs (Individualized Education Programs) to assist identified students, and content areas progress at varied levels and rates for all learners. While students are included in the same classroom settings, teachers may have a student in the classroom who speaks that individual's native tongue; however, the student is not skilled to read or write in the native language. When placed in an American classroom, entry in another culture has countless ramifications. Teachers and literacy coaches must work to assist students to learn the concepts of the curriculum and work to have them somewhat ready for the state-mandated tests. These are awesome and overwhelming challenges .Teachers often resort to having students use only block print to enable translations, comprehension, and concept attainment for students. The state mandated tests are in print (block) format.
The aforementioned are practical aspects noting that we must re-conceptualize cursive writing's importance in the curriculum as well as beyond while focusing on the quality of instructional time required to ensure that students are prepared for today's digital age and the future workforce.
Essential
Schools are microcosms of our society. We need literate individuals in our society. There are essential aspects to consider. It begins by having students who are able to read, write, listen and communicate effectively. Manuscript (block print) and consecutive years of the same letter formations are essential for students to obtain skill acquisition in communicating. When students are able to concentrate on their compositions and not handwriting , perhaps their compositions will indicate more logical thought processes and the mechanical components are more likely to be in place. It is essential that we teach students proper grammar, sentence structure , and writing skills.
Cursive proponents cite the College Board data on the writing portion of the SATs that "15 percent of students who wrote their essay in cursive did slightly better than those who used some other type of handwriting" (Carpenter, 2007, p. 2). In contrast, Karin Klein, a trained scorer for the SATs, emphatically states in "How I Gamed the SAT," "Length doesn't always mean a better score, but I would advise any kid: Write at least a page and a quarter. Nobody who got one of the top scores wrote one page or less" (Los Angeles Times, 2005, p.l). Hence, any student using manuscript (block format) may increase speed of writing and score higher on the SAT because of knowing this tip.
Another essential aspect is assessment. Teachers must do varied forms of measuring student progress. It only makes sense for teachers to be able to read and score students ' work in a timely and accurate manner. Trying to decipher written words/paragraphs in essays, short answers, and/or fill in the blank type questions requires extra time for teachers and may result in resubmits for students. Hence , this causes anxiety for students as legibility of their handwriting style is impacting their learning.
With the variation of different writing models - Palmer, Zaner-Bloser and Writing Without Tears to name a few - it is difficult for teacher-education programs to include any of these in their programming . As Troyer points out, "minimal time is spent teaching cursive to future teachers" (2009, p. T). Teacher education programs now have the demands of courses for inclusion, technology ,diversity , and ESL/ELL students, in addition to the content major. Hence, writing is often not required. Graham, et al. (2008, p. 66) notes that "lack of either instructional knowledge or knowledge of handwriting development could weaken the quality of teachers' handwriting instruction." Educational institutions that have teacher training programs are concerned about accreditations and the needed programmatic changes required to meet its state and/or NCATE standards relative to the aforementioned.
Conclusion
The aspects reviewed and discussed will not solve the difficulties of cursive writing. However, the historical, practical, and essential aspects call for a number of questions and the need for more educational research in this area. Indicators are that technological advances and state-mandated tests, in addition to other variables, are forcing cursive writing to become a casualty of the American educational landscape.
References
Carpenter, C. (2007, November 14). Is this the end of cursive writing? Christian Science Monitor, 99(244), 13-15. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from Newspaper Source database.
Cravens, J. (2004) Is teaching cursive writing a waste of time? It motivates students to learn . American Teacher, 88(6) , 4 . Retrieved February 12 , 2009, from Education Full Text database.
Graham, S. ,Harris, K. ,Mason, L., Fink-Chorzempa,B. ,Moran, S. ,&Saddler,B. (2008). How do primary grade teachers teach handwriting? A national survey. Reading and Writing, 21(1/2),49-69. Retrieved February 12,2009, from Education Full Text database.
Hudson , M . (2007) . Five ways to practice cursive . Instructor (New York,N.Y.: 1999), 117(3), 47. Retrieved February 12 , 2009, from Education Full Text database.
Martinez, C. (2006, November 4). Cursive ... A fading art? Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, TX). Retrieved February 12, 2009, from Newspaper Source database.
Medwell,J.,&Wray,D.(2007,Aprill). Handwriting: What do we know and what do we need to know?. Literacy, 41(1), 10-15. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from ERIC database.
Medwell, J., & Wray, D. (2008). Handwriting -A forgotten skill. Language and Education, 22(1), 34-47. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from ERIC database.
Negley, E. (2007, April 7). Has cursive been: Youngsters still learn penmanship, but in the computer age, schools and society do little to encourage them to use it as they grow older. Reading Eagle (PA). Retrieved February 12, 2009, from Newspaper Source database.
Nix, M. (2008, December 30). Some schools refuse to write off cursive. The Sacramento Bee, p. IB. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from story/1505448 .html
Rufo, D. (2004). Is teaching cursive writing a waste of time? It's a 'loopy' use of class time. American Teacher, 88(6), 4. Retrieved February 12, 2009 , from Education Full Text database.
Thornton, T P. (1 996). Handwriting in America: A Cultural History. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
Troyer, N. (2005, January 18). Lost art of penmanship; Cursive writing a casualty of the technological age. The Washington Times, p. A02. Retrieved January 22, 2009, from Questia Online Library.
Yackley, R. B. (2006, November 15). 'P' is for penmanship. Daily Herald, p. 1. Retrieved January 22, 2009, from Questia Online Library.
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Tossing the Script: The End of the Line for Cursive?
by BRIAN BRAIKER
Jan. 24, 2011 handwriting may be on the wall for cursive.
At least that's what some people fear as schools across the country continue to drop cursive handwriting from their curricula.
Forty-one states have so far adopted the new Common Core State Standards for English, which does not require cursive. Set by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA), the standards provide a general framework for what students are expected to learn before college.
States are allowed the option of re-including cursive if they so choose, which is what Massachusetts and California have done.
But the latest to contemplate abandoning the script is Georgia, where teachers and administrators will meet in March to discuss erasing the longhand style from its lesson plans, says Georgia Department of Education spokesman Matt Cardoza.
The argument is that cursive is time-consuming and not as useful as the keyboard skills students will need as they move on to junior high and high school, he says.
As it happens, cursive is also not on the tests that rate schools under the No Child Left Behind law, and increasingly schools gear their curricula to excel at those tests, says Kathleen Wright, a national project manager for Zaner-Bloser, a publisher of education writing materials.
"It's just not being assessed. That's the biggie," she says. "If it's not assessed, it tends to fall by a little because people are teaching to the test."
So what's the big deal if your little John Hancock doesn't have a big loopy cursive signature of his own?
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Battle of the Books: Texas to Change History? Watch Video
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Is Technology Killing Penmanship? Watch Video
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Denis McDonough on 'This Week' Watch Video
Antiquated or no, cursive is viewed by some parents and educators as essential to an education -- especially as text-happy teens become ever more thumb-centric.
"I've been disappointed in general with the public school system here," says Lisa Faircloth, a stay-at-home mother of two in Atlanta. She says she is pleased that her 7 year-old son Joe learned cursive.
"I feel like it has helped him with his fine motor skills and made him more graceful," she says. "He shows more of an interest in art because he is able to form things he hadn't before and has new muscle movements that he didn't know before."
The Neuroscience of Learning
Science backs her up. Increasingly the argument that students should be spending more time learning keyboard skills than cursive -- because that's the future! -- is beginning to look like a straw man.
"Of course it's important to know how to typewrite," says associate professor Anne Mangen at the University of Stavanger's Reading Centre. "But handwriting seems, based on empirical evidence from neuroscience, to play a larger role in the visual recognition and learning of letters.
"This is something one should be aware of in an educational context," she stresses.
In other words, those who learn to write by hand learn better.
Mangen points to an experiment involving two groups of adults in which participants were taught a new, foreign alphabet. One group learned the characters by hand, the other learned only to recognize them on a screen and with a keyboard.
Weeks after the experiment, the group that learned the letters by hand consistently scored better on recognition tests than those who learned with a keyboard. Brain scans of the hands-on group also showed greater activity in the part of the brain that controls language comprehension, motor-related processes and speech-associated gestures.
"Now we have studies that show for some important aspects of reading, digital technology may not be as important as handwriting," she says.
For this and other reasons, Kathleen Wright of Zaner-Bloser isn't quite prepared to type out cursive's obituary. Technology has been the bogey man before, after all.
"I personally don't see it going away," she says. "When the typewriter first came in, people asked ''is anyone going to write by hand any more?'
"And if you don't teach kids," she adds, "they wont have access to a lot of historical documents and primary source documents because they won't have learned cursive."
To which John Hancock might thave texted "OMG."
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How Should We Teach Our Children to Write? Cursive First, Print Later! QQBy Samuel L. Blumenfeld
For the last six years or so, I have been lecturing parents at homeschool conferences on how to teach the three R’s: reading ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic. I e xplain in great detail how to teach children to read phonetically through intensive, systematic phonics. But when it comes to writing, I have to explain to a very skeptical audience why cursive writing should be taught first and print later. I usually start my lecture by asking the parents if they think that their children ought to be taught to write. I explain that many educators now believe that handwriting is really an obsolete art that has been replaced by the typewriter and word processor, and that it is no longer necessary to teach children to write. They imply that if a child wants to learn to write, he or she can do so without the help of any school instruction. However, I’ve yet to meet any parents who have been sold on such daring, but questionable, futurist thinking. They all believe that their children should be taught to write. And, of course, I agree with them. After all, no one knows what needs their children will have for good handwriting twenty years hence. Also, you can’t carry a two - thousand - dollar laptop or a typewriter, everywhere you go. QQThe question then becomes: How shall we teach children to write? And my answer is quite dear: Do not teach your child to print by ball - and - stick, or italic, or D’Nealian. Teach your child to write a standard cursive script. And the reason why I can say this with confidence is because that’s the way I was taught to write in the first grade in a New York City public school back in 1931 when teachers knew what they were doing. In those days children were not taught to print. We were all taught cursive right off the bat, and the result is that people of my generation generally have better handwriting than those of recent generations. Apparently, cursive first went out of style in the 1940s when the schools adopted ball - and - stick manuscript to go with the new Dick and Jane look - say reading programs. Ball - and - stick was part of the new progressive reforms of primary education. But ball - and - stick has produced a handwriting disaster. Why? Because by the time children are introduced to cursive in the third grade, their writing habits are so fixed that they resent having to learn an entirely new way of writing, the teachers do not have the time to supervise the development of a good cursive script, and the students are usually unwilling to take the time and do the practice needed to develop a good cursive handwriting. QQThe result is that many youngsters continue to print for the rest of their lives, some develop a hybrid handwriting style consisting of a mixture of print and cursive, and some do develop a good cursive because they’d always wanted to write cursive and had been secretly practicing it for years without their teachers’ or parents’ knowledge. Apparently, all of those schools that introduce cursive in the second or third grade must believe that it has some value, or else why would they teach it at all? The problem is that by requiring the students to learn ball - and - stick first, they create obstacles to the development of a good cursive script. QQ2 The reason for teaching ball - and - stick first, we are told, is because first graders do not have the motor skills or muscular dexterity in their fingers to be able to write cursive at that age. But that argument is totally false. Prior to the 1940s virtually all children in public and private schools were taught cursive in the first grade and virtually all learned to write very nicely. All were trained in penmanship and did the various exercises - the ovals, the rainbows, the ups and d owns - that helped us develop good handwriting. We were also taught how to hold the writing instrument (or stylus) correctly, cradled between the thumb and the forefinger (also known as the index finger) with the tip of the writing instrument resting on the long finger next to the forefinger, in a very relaxed position, enabling a writer to write for hours without tiring. On the other hand, when a child is taught to print first, the writing instrument is held straight up with three or four fingers in a tight grip with much pressure being exerted downward on the paper placed in a straight position. QQWhen these children are then taught cursive in the second or third grade, they do not change the way they hold the writing instrument because a motor or muscular habit has been established that is not easy to alter. That is why so many children develop poor cursive scripts because of the way they hold their pens. Children do not easily unlearn bad habits. Which is why I tell parents that there are two very important no - no’s in primary education: do not teach anything that later has to be unlearned, and do not let a child develop a bad habit. Instruct the child to do it right from the beginning. How Cursive Helps Reading A question most often asked by parents when I assert that cursive should be taught first is: won’t learning cursive interfere with learning to read printed words? The answer is: not at all. All of us who learned cursive first had no problem learning to read print. In fact it helped us. Ho w? Well, one of the biggest problems children have when learning to read primary - school print and write in ball - and - stick is that so many letters look alike - such as b’s and d’s; f’s and t‘s; g’s, q’s, and p’s - that children become confused and make many unnecessary reading errors. In cursive, however, there is a big difference between a b and. a d . In cursive writing, a b starts like an l while a d begins like writing the letter a . In other words, in cursive, children do not confuse b’s and d’s, because the movements of the hand make it impossible to confuse the two letters. And this knowledge acquired by the hand is transferred to the reading process. Thus, learning to write cursive helps lear n ing to read print. Another aid to reading is that cursive requires children to write from left to right so that the letters will join with one another in proper sequence. The blending of the sounds is made more apparent by the joining of the letters. In ball - and - stick, some children write the letters backwards, and often the spacing is so erratic that you can’t tell where one word ends and another begins. Cursive teaches spatial discipline. Another important benefit of cursive is that it helps the child learn to spell correctly since the hand acquires know ledge of spelling patterns through hand movements that are used again, and again in spelling. This is the same phenomenon that occurs when pianists or typists learn patterns of hand movements through continued repetition. 3 Another question often asked by mothers of six - year - olds is what will their children do when asked on a job application to “please print.” My answer is that I don’t advocate not teaching a child to print, I simply say teach cursive first, print later. Besides, that child will have pl enty of time to learn to print between the first grade and applying for a job as a teenager. The Ease of Cursive I am often asked: “Isn’t cursive harder to learn than print?” No. It’s just the opposite. It is difficult, if not unnatural, for child ren to draw straight lines and perfect circles, which is required in ball - and - stick, when they would much rather be doing curves and curls. In fact, all of cursive consists of only three movements: the undercurve, the ove r- curve, and the up and down. That’s all there is to it. Another important point is that it takes time and supervision to help a child develop a good cursive script, and one has that time in the first grade, not the third grade. The first - grade child may start out writing in a large scr awl, but in only a matter of weeks, that scrawl will be controlled by those little fingers into a very nice manageable script. Pra c- tice makes perfect, and children should be given practice in writing cursive. If you’ve wondered why your grandparents u sually have better handwriting than you do; well now, you know the answer. If you teach cursive first, you can always develop a good print style later. But if you teach print first, you may never develop a good cursive style. Thus it is absolutely essenti al to teach cursive first. Also, by concentrating on the development of a good cursive handwriting, you elim i- nate the nonsense of first starting with ball - and - stick, then moving to slant ball - and - stick, or some other transitional script, finally endin g up with cursive. Children will only make the effort to learn one primary way of writing which they will use for the rest of their lives. They don't need to be taught three ways, two of which will be discarded. Incidentally, I have no objection to ch ildren drawing letters on their own when lear n- ing the alphabet. But once they start learning to read, formal instruction in cursive should begin. Cursive Helps the Left - Handed Also, it may surprise the reader to learn that left - handed children gain special benefits from learning cursive first. When left handed children are taught ball - and - stick first, their tendency is to use the hook position in writing since the stylus is held straight up and the paper is also positioned straight. This means that, as the child proceeds, printing from left to right, the child’s arm will cover what has already been written. This can be avoided if the left - handed child learns to write from the bottom up, the way right - handed children write. But this is difficult, if n ot impossible, to do when printing ball - and - stick. However, if a left - handed child is taught to write cursive first, he or she must then turn the paper clockwise and must write from the bottom up, since it is impossible to use the hook position if the paper is turned clockwise. Right - handers, of course, turn the paper counter - clockwise. But left - handers are quite capable of developing as good a cursive handwriting as any right - hander by writing from the bottom up. (In fact, the secret of good handwriti ng may be in the position of the paper.) 4 All of this must lead to one simple conclusion: teach cursive first and print later, Th e re are few things that help enhance a child's academic self - esteem more than the develo p- ment of good handwriting. It helps reading, it helps spelling, and because writing is made easy, accurate, and esthetically pleasant, it helps thinking. As Francis Bacon once said: “Reading maketh a full man. . . and writing an exact man.” This article is from The Blumenfeld Educati on Letter , Vol. 9, No. 9 (Letter #97), Septe m- ber 1994. Editor: Samuel L. Blumenfeld. QQCursive Alphabet Style Recommended by Dr. Sam Bl u menfeld 5 Addendum A Should people with dysgraphia use cursive writing instead of printing? For many children with dysgraphia, cursive writing has several advantages. It elim i- nates the necessity of picking up a pencil and deciding where to replace it after each le t- ter. Each letter starts on the line, thus eliminating another potentially confusing decision for the writer. Cursive also has very few reversible letters, a typical source of trouble for people with dysgraphia. It eliminates word - spacing problems and gives words a flow and rhythm that enhances learning. For children who find it difficult to remember the m otor patterns of letter forms, starting with cursive eliminates the traumatic transition from manuscript to cursive writing. Writers in cursive also have more opportunity to disti n- guish b, d, p, and q because the cursive letter formations for writing each of these letters is so different. (Excerpt from an article on handwriting problems on The I n ternational Dyslexia Association web site, . The fact sheet is by Diana Ha n bury King and is the summary of work by Ruthmary Deuel, M.D., Betty Sheffield, and Diana Ha n bury King. ) 6 QQADDENDUM B From Teaching Language - Deficient Children: Theory and Application of the Association Method for Multisensory Teaching by N. Etoile Dubard and Maureen K. Martin Educators Publishing Service, Cambridge, Ma. 1994, pp. 47f Cursive Script Another distinctive feature is the use of cursive writing from the beginning level and throughout the entire program (McGinnis 1963). The rationale for using cursive writing is that it gives the child a way of knowing that the letters for which he/she learned speech production can be arranged to become a word representing a thing. Manuscript does not offer such a means of informing the child that certain parts form a whole. The normal child’s central nervous system adequately processes information so that this awar e ness exists. In aphasic and other children with language learning disabilities, the processing is not adequate to the task. Almost all of the professional literature related to children with learning difficulties indicates there are common reversals, inversions, and confusions r e- garding such written patterns as b/d, d./g, m/w , and saw/was , etc. While cursive script may not eliminate all difficul ties, it helps reduce them. The fact that some schools for the deaf have employed cursive writing from the beginning of the instructional program ind i- cates that the merits of cursive writing over manuscript have been recognized. Heyman (1977) promoted cursive writing in this way: Mastering cursive writing has many benefits for special children. It pe r mits the child to see each word as an integral unit, helps solve spatial problems for st u- dents who run all words together, and eliminates serious letter reversal . . . . He learns immediately that in cursive writing letters are not isolated, but are always connected to form words. (106) Stasio (1976) reported these results from a study on severely and profoundly retarded children: 1. Children function ing at a severely and profoundly retarded level could use cursive le t ters more effectively than they could manuscript. 2. When using cursive letters, fewer errors were made in right - to - left direction than with printed letters. 3. There were fewer errors made in letter reversal among cursive letters than with printed ones. (55) 7 In relation to his own teaching experiences, Stasio also reported that: I noticed in printing the letter A, a child must use three different motions as well as rel o cate the star ting point of the printed letter in order to complete it. In cursive writing the A can be formed in one continuous motion. This continuous motion is related to all cursive letters except for the letters t and x, which require the child to remove his pencil from the paper twice. But this does not involve relocating any given point to complete the letter. When writing the printed alphabet, a child has to remove his pencil from the paper and relocate the starting points no less than 55 times. (55) In a s tudy conducted with profoundly deaf children, Martin (1987) found a significant difference in the children’s recognition of cursive letters and words over the same in manuscript. Serio (1968, 67 - 68) promoted the use of cursive for these reasons: (1) the rhythm i n- volved in cursive writing lends itself to a more efficient use of movement, (2) proper pa c- ing is aided in the writing of words, (3) a single method approach eliminates the problem of retraining, and (4) the forms of individual letters in cursi ve writing seem to be more independent of confusion due to directionality. Early (1973, 105) suggested that with the use of cursive writing “the child more readily experiences the total form or shape of a given word as he monitors the kinesthetic feedback from his writing movements.” When implementing the Association Method, the letter formations of cursive script should be as simple as the teacher is able to produce. Simple, clear letter formation which restricts the use of unnecessary loops and caref ully avoids fancy letters will reduce the possibility of confusion which might stem from known or undetected visual perceptual differences. Children are taught to read print. The time at which this is begun varies a c- cording to their needs and abilities. Co ncern that the children may encounter difficulty in learning to read manuscript later is unjustified. Many teachers using the procedures have reported that their pupils made transitions from reading cursive to manuscript without any difficulties. Prior to 1925, it was common practice to teach cursive writing exclusively in regular education classrooms. This did not hinder the development of reading manuscript. QQBibliography for the Association Method Cursive Article Early, G. H. 1973. The case for cursive writing. Academic therapy 9(1): 105 - 8 Martin, M. K. 1985. Comparative studies of the use of cursive versus manuscript chara c- ters in teaching young handicapped children. Ph.D. diss., University College, National University of Ireland, Dublin. ________. 19 87. A comparative study of the use of cursive versus manuscript characters in teaching profoundly hearing impaired children to recognize sounds and words. Journal of British Association of Teachers of the Deaf 11:173 - 82 McGinnis. Mildred 1963. Aphasic chi ldren. Washington. D.C.: The A.G. Bell Associ a- tion for the Deaf. Serio, M. 1968. Cursive writing: An analytical approach. Academic Therapy (4), 1:67 - 70 Stasio, J. T. 1976. Cursive and manuscript writing. The Pointer 1:65 - 56. QQ[pic]
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Experimental Brain Research© Springer-Verlag 200410.1007/s00221-004-1853-x
Research Article
“Proprioceptive signature” of cursive writing in humans: a multi-population coding
Jean-Pierre Roll1, 3 , Frédéric Albert1, Edith Ribot-Ciscar1 and Mikael Bergenheim2
(1)
Laboratoire de Neurobiologie Humaine, UMR 6149 Université de Provence/CNRS, 13397 Marseille, France
(2)
Center for Muskculoskeletal Research, University of Gävle, Umea, Sweden
(3)
Laboratoire de Neurobiologie Humaine, UMR 6149, Université de Provence/CNRS, Avenue Escadrille Normandie Niemen, 13397 Marseille Cedex 20, France
Jean-Pierre Roll
Email: lnh@up.univ-mrs.fr
Received: 21 July 2003Accepted: 18 December 2003Published online: 9 March 2004
Abstract
The goal of the present study was to investigate the firing behavior of populations of muscle spindle afferents in all the muscles acting on the ankle while this joint was being subjected to “writing-like” movements. First it was proposed to determine whether the ensemble of muscle spindles give rise to a unique, specific, and reproducible feedback information characterizing each letter, number or short word. Secondly, we analyzed how the proprioceptive feedback on the whole encodes the spatial and temporal characteristics of writing movements using the “vector population model”. The unitary activity of 51 primary and secondary muscle spindle afferents was recorded in the tibial and common peroneal nerves at the level of the popliteal fossea, using the microneurographic method. The units recorded from belonged to the tibialis anterior, the extensor digitorum longus, the extensor hallucis longus, the peroneus lateralis, the gastrocnemius-soleus and the tibialis posterior muscles. The “writing-like” movements were randomly imposed at a “natural” velocity via a computer-controlled machine in a two-dimensional space. In general, muscle spindle afferents from any of the six muscles responded according to the tuning properties of the parent muscle, i.e. increasing their discharge rate during the phases where the direction of movement was within the preferred sensory sector of the parent muscle. The whole trajectory of the writing movements was coded in turn by the activity of Ia afferents arising from all the muscles acting on the joint. Both single afferent responses and population responses were found to be highly specific and reproducible with each graphic sign. The complex multi-muscle afferent pattern involved, with its timing and distribution in the muscle space, seems to constitute a true “proprioceptive signature” for each graphic symbol. The ensemble of muscle spindle afferents were therefore found to encode the instantaneous direction and velocity of writing movements remarkably accurately. It was concluded that the proprioceptive feedback from all the muscles with which the moving joint is equipped provides the CNS with highly specific information that might contribute to a graphic sign identification process.
Keywords
Muscle spindle afferents Microneurography Ensemble coding “Vector population model” Writing movements
This work was supported by grants from the Ministère de la Recherche, ACI Cognitique
Introduction
The skill of handwriting, and in particular the ability to relate this motor act to higher cognitive functions such as reading and spelling, requires years of practice (Viviani and Terzuolo 1983; Viviani 1990, 1998). The most commonly used effector in writing is of course the hand-arm system, and throughout the learning process and routine practice the act of writing is necessarily associated with a continuous flow of sensory feedback originating mainly from tactile and proprioceptive receptors within this system. This sensory feedback is conveyed to the central nervous system (CNS) and most probably feeds this system with the spatial and temporal information needed for each written letter to be exactly identified. In addition, this sensory information can be assumed to provide the CNS with a basis for organizing words and phrases.
That proprioceptive and tactile information is vital to the handwriting of letters and other symbolic figures is supported by previous studies on both patients and healthy subjects. Studies on deafferented patients with total loss of proprioceptive and tactile afferents have shown that the morphokinetic (i.e., shape) and topokinetic (i.e., location) characteristics of handwriting and ellipse-drawing are deeply altered in the absence of visual cues (Forget 1986; Ghez et al. 1990; Teasdale et al. 1993; Sacks 1985; Cole 1995). Likewise, Laszlo and Bairstow (1971) observed that subjects with blocked sensory nerve conduction had difficulty in starting to write a letter and produced trajectories inappropriate to the shape of the letter they were attempting to write. It therefore seems safe to conclude that proprioceptive and tactile sensory information is an important component of letter-writing and the drawing of other symbolic shapes.
It is widely recognized nowadays that sensory information produced by muscle spindles constitutes a crucial part of proprioception (Cordo 1990; Gandevia 1996; Gandevia and Burke 1992; Roll 2003). As far as the sensory level is concerned, one might mention recent studies examining the coding of two-dimensional pointing and drawing movements, the results of which have shown that muscle spindle population activity is strongly correlated with both the direction and the velocity of the ongoing movement under both passive and active conditions (Bergenheim et al. 2000; Roll et al. 2000; Jones et al. 2001). In addition, these studies showed that each muscle spindle is sensitive to a specific range of movement directions (the so-called preferred sensory sector, PSS), and shows maximum sensitivity to a specific direction (denoted the preferred sensory direction, PSD). The PSS and the PSD of the various muscle spindles within a given muscle are quite similar, which makes it possible to calculate an average PSD and PSS for that muscle. Each muscle has its own PSD and PSS which differs from those of other muscles. When examining the PSS of the muscle groups acting on the ankle joint, it was observed that they overlapped in such a way that, together, they covered the whole range of possible movement directions in that particular joint (Bergenheim et al. 2000; Roll et al. 2000). The authors of the latter studies concluded that the proprioceptive information arising from all muscles surrounding a joint was needed for accurate sensory and perceptual coding to be performed throughout the whole movement.
In other studies, using a similar population vector model to that used by Schwartz (1992, 1993) at the cortical level, it was established that the “sum vector” of all the oriented and weighted activity from the whole population of muscle spindles in all the muscles acting on a given joint, accurately describes the instantaneous direction and velocity of the ongoing movement in two dimensional space (Bergenheim et al. 2000; Roll et al. 2000; Jones et al. 2001; Ribot-Ciscar et al. 2002).
Having established that muscle spindles convey important cues for the coding of two dimensional simple-movements, the question remained to be answered as to whether this information also helps to perform perceptual and cognitive tasks, such as recognizing letters and other symbolic figures. In a series of psychophysiological experiments, it was established that exact kinaesthetic illusions of drawing various geometrical shapes could be induced by applying complex vibration patterns to four wrist muscle groups (Roll and Gilhodes 1995; Roll et al. 1996). Furthermore, illusions of writing different letters or numbers, which were accurately recognized by subjects, could be elicited by vibrating muscle groups in the elbow and shoulder joints simultaneously (Gilhodes and Roll 2001; Roll 2003). These experiments clearly showed that the sensory information arising from populations of muscle spindle afferents suffices to be able to perform cognitive tasks such as the perception of letters and geometrical shapes.
However, in these studies, the vibratory stimulation induced muscle spindle afferent signals supposedly mimicking those normally generated during an actual movement. The vibration patterns producing these muscle spindle afferent signals had been calculated using a geometrical model for the hand or hand-arm systems and a mathematical model for the muscle spindle firing behavior (Ans et al. 1983; Coiton et al. 1991; Gilhodes et al. 1993). In the present study, we recorded the actual muscle spindle afferent signals directly from peripheral nerves during imposed cursive trajectories forming different letters, numbers and some short words.
The aim of the present study was to investigate the firing behavior of populations of muscle spindle afferents in all the muscles acting on a given joint while this joint was subjected to “writing-like” movements. More specifically, we wanted to find out first whether the muscle spindle populations gave rise to a unique, specific, and reproducible “sensory landscape” forming a veritable “proprioceptive signature” characterizing each letter, number or short word. Secondly, we analyzed how the sensory information from all the muscles may encode imposed “writing like” movements by testing whether the coding carried out by this set of muscle spindle afferents obeys the “vector population model”, as previously found to occur in the case of simpler geometrical drawing movements.
Materials and methods
Since the material and methods used in the present study were very similar to those described in other recent papers (see Bergenheim et al. 2000; Roll et al. 2000; Ribot-Ciscar et al. 2002, 2003), they will be only briefly outlined here.
Forty-three healthy volunteers (aged 21–32 years) participated in the study. All the subjects gave their prior informed consent to the procedure, as required by the Helsinki Declaration. The study was duly approved by the local ethics committee (CCPPRB, Marseille I). The unitary activity of 51 primary (Ia) and secondary (II) muscle spindle afferents (46 Ia, 5II) was recorded using the microneurographic technique (see e.g., Vallbo and Hagbarth 1968; Bergenheim et al. 1999) at the level of the popliteal fossea, from two different nerve branches. At the level of the common peroneal nerve, the units recorded from belonged to the tibialis anterior (TA; 11 Ia, 2 II), the extensor digitorum longus (EDL; 12 Ia, 2 II), the extensor hallucis longus (EHL; 7 Ia), and the peroneus lateralis (PL; 7 Ia, 1 II). At the level of the tibial nerve, the units recorded from belonged to the gastrocnemius soleus (GS; 7 Ia) and the tibialis posterior (TP; 2 Ia). The criteria adopted to classify the units have been described elsewhere in detail (Bergenheim et al. 2000). The quantitative relation between recorded number of Ia and II afferents should not be considered to correspond to the actual relation between these types of afferents in the peripheral nerve. It is probably technically easier to record the relatively larger Ia fibers using microneurography, and therefore the Ia afferents often outnumber the II afferents in these experiments.
Experimental set-up and data recording
The subjects were comfortably seated in an armchair, with their legs positioned in cushioned grooves so that a standardized relaxed position could be maintained throughout the experiment without any muscle activity occurring. The knee joint was at an angle of about 120–130°. The right foot was placed on a stationary pedal. The left foot was attached to a movable pedal connected to a computer-controlled machine. This machine could be used to impose 2-D movements on the ankle joint so that the tip of the foot was made to form the shapes of different numbers (1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9), letters (a, b, e, l, m, n) or a short word (in). The various shapes were written by the experimenter on a digitizing tablet prior to the experimental series, and then transferred to the computer-controlled machine. These writing movements were the same in each experiment, but were always imposed in a random order. The scale of all these trajectories was such that it fitted a 50×80 mm displacement frame around the tip of the foot. Their velocities varied during each movement in a “natural” way, reproducing the continuously varying writing velocity of the experimenter when writing on the digitizing tablet.
Data analysis
The descriptive part of this study, in which the proprioceptive signature of each written symbol was investigated, required no particular off-line data analysis. Here the instantaneous frequency of the muscle spindle responses are shown in a quite straightforward way.
For the analysis using the “vector population model”, each sequence corresponding to a particular writing movement was divided into series of 200 ms time-windows. In each time-window, the mean discharge frequency of each single afferent was calculated and then averaged, taking all the afferents belonging to the same muscle together. This analysis was repeated with each of the six ankle muscles recorded from. The activity of all the muscle spindle afferents from one muscle was then represented by a population vector. The orientation of this vector corresponded to the preferred sensory direction of the receptor bearing muscle. The length of the vector gave the mean instantaneous frequency of the whole population of afferents arising from this particular muscle. Lastly, a sum vector corresponding to the sum of the six population vectors was calculated for each 200 ms time-window.
Note that the preferred sensory directions of the ankle flexor muscles had been established previously: these are 96° for TA, 59° for EDL, 73° for EHL, and 311° for PL muscle, where 90° corresponds to a straight plantar flexion, 270° to a dorsiflexion, and 0° to an inwards rotation of the foot (see Bergenheim et al. 2000). In the present study, the preferred sensory direction of the GS muscles could be determined by recording from the tibial nerve. The method used for calculating the preferred sensory direction of a muscle has been described elsewhere (see Bergenheim et al. 2000). In short, it consisted in analyzing muscle spindle afferent responses to passive ramp movements imposed in 16 different directions. The preferred sensory direction of the GS was 264°. Please note that this calculation is based only on Ia afferents. However, as observed in previous studies, Ia and II afferents from the same muscle do not differ significantly in their directional sensitivity (Bergenheim et al 2000). Therefore it does not seem necessary to include II afferents for an adequate estimation of the preferred sensory direction. As concerns the other ankle extensor muscle (i.e., the TP muscle), the number of recorded afferents (n=2) was considered too low for a calculation of the preferred sensory direction. Therefore, a preferred sensory direction established previously and based on the direction of the illusory movement induced by tendon vibration was used (i.e., 217°, Bergenheim et al. 2000).
To analyze the muscle spindle afferent responses to the actual movement, the movement trajectory in each 200 ms time-window was also represented by vectors. The direction of vector corresponded to that of the movement, and its length gave the instantaneous velocity of the movement in each time-window (see Fig. 6A left).
Statistical analysis
Linear regressions were computed between the neuronal vectors and the vectors representing the movement in terms of their direction and amplitude. Note that in order to analyze the directional data, which are circular data, by means of correlation (see Fig. 6C), we considered that all directions were included in one of the two quadrants 0/180° and 0/−180° (Schwartz 1993). In order to analyze the specificity of neural vector for each graphic sign, these linear regressions were performed between movement vectors and neural vectors describing the same trajectory as well as between movement vectors and neural vectors describing each of the various trajectories (see Table 1). Since the time duration varies between each graphic sign (between 4 s for “e” to 7.4 s for “l”), the data were normalized in time.
Table 1
Coefficients of correlation corresponding to the linear regressions computed between the neural vectors and the vectors representing the movement in terms of their direction and amplitude. Some of the imposed letters and numbers were not included because of insufficient data. Note that the coefficients are significant only when the neural vectors and movement vectors are related to the same graphic sign, i.e. bold figures along the diagonal in the table
| |
|A |
A |0.71 |0.07 |0.06 |0.12 |0.36 |0.13 |0.41 |0.21 |0.17 | |B |0.17 |0.69 |0.20 |0.47 |0.45 |0.34 |0.32 |0.04 |0.47 | |E |0.36 |0.21 |0.65 |0.27 |0.01 |0.67 |0.40 |0.01 |0.50 | |L |0.29 |0.49 |0.22 |0.89 |0.15 |0.51 |0.12 |0.01 |0.59 | |1 |0.21 |0.48 |0.22 |0.03 |0.76 |0.05 |0.01 |0.03 |0.01 | |3 |0.30 |0.51 |0.19 |0.47 |0.01 |0.66 |0.01 |0.05 |0.01 | |6 |0.03 |0.03 |0.01 |0.05 |0.18 |0.02 |0.66 |0.27 |0.34 | |8 |0.42 |0.04 |0.08 |0.08 |0.17 |0.01 |0.59 |0.68 |0.36 | |9 |0.27 |0.17 |0.42 |0.24 |0.01 |0.38 |0.17 |0.01 |0.85 | |Results
Single muscle spindle afferent activity from one muscle
Figure 1 gives, as an example, the afferent activity of a primary and a secondary muscle spindle afferent originating from the EDL muscle during “writing-like” movements forming different letters, numbers and the short word “in”. As can be seen in this figure, the evolution of the frequency curves of the primary and secondary endings belonging to the same muscle showed a typical pattern. The primary ending exhibited a distinct threshold for activation and once activated it showed little positional sensitivity. The secondary ending fired more continuously, reflecting mainly the continuous changes in muscle length. These muscle spindle firing patterns proved to be highly reproducible when each afferent was tested with an identical movement several times (see Fig. 2).
Fig. 1
Muscle spindle unitary afferent responses from extensor digitorum longus muscle (EDL) during various writing movements. The various parts of the figure give from top to bottom: the imposed writing movement, the instantaneous frequency and the spike train corresponding to a muscle spindle primary ending (Ia-EDL); the instantaneous frequency and the spike train corresponding to a muscle spindle secondary ending (II-EDL); the X and Y coordinates of the movement and the pooled activity of all the afferents tested belonging to the same EDL muscle. The dotted lines give the start and end of each writing movement. Note the high specificity of the firing patterns corresponding to each graphic symbol
Fig. 2
Reproducibility of muscle spindle responses to successive imposition of five writing trajectories describing the same letter, “e”. This example was based on a Ia afferent belonging to the EDL muscle. The figure gives the instantaneous frequency of the afferent response to each movement and the X and Y coordinates of the movement
Generally speaking, in all the muscles tested, the muscle spindle activity increased during the phases of the trajectory when the direction of the movement was within the preferred sensory sector of the parent muscle. In addition, the maximum afferent response occurred when the movement was in the preferred sensory direction of the receptor bearing muscle. These features are described in detail in Fig. 3 in the case of an EDL primary afferent and during the writing of the letter “a”, as an example.
Fig. 3A, B
The muscle spindle Ia afferent response to writing movements depends on the preferred sensory sector of the parent muscle. A Preferred sensory sector of the EDL muscle. The bold arrows indicate the directions of movements enhancing the activity of EDL muscle spindle primary endings. The bold line delimits the preferred sensory sector of that muscle. The gray arrow gives the preferred sensory direction of the EDL muscle (see Bergenheim et al. 2000). B Response of a Ia EDL afferent to the letter “a”. The afferent firing increased during parts of the trajectories (in gray) the directions of which were within the preferred sensory sector of the parent muscle (gray rectangles); i.e., during plantar flexions
Single muscle spindle afferent activity in all the muscles acting on the ankle joint
Muscle spindle afferents from all the main muscle groups surrounding the ankle joint were recorded during the same writing movements. Figure 4 gives, as an example, the responses of six primary afferents originating from the TA, EDL, EHL, PL, GS and TP muscles, during the writing of the letter “a” and the number “2”. These afferents were not all recorded in the same subject. As can be seen, the afferent activities of the three dorsal flexor ankle muscles (TA, EDL and EHL) increased during similar phases of the movement when the parent muscles were stretched (i.e. during the plantar flexion phases). Their activity decreased and fell to zero during the phases of the movements where the receptor bearing muscles were shortened. The Ia afferent feedback arising from the muscles of the anterior part of the leg was clearly unable to respond during the whole trajectory. The rest of the trajectory was coded by the afferents belonging to the lateral and posterior muscles of the leg (PL, GS and TP muscles), i.e. during dorsal and lateral flexion of the ankle joint.
Fig. 4
Response of six primary afferents originating from each of the main muscle groups surrounding the ankle joint during movements forming the letter “a” and the number “2” (TA tibialis anterior, EDL extensor digitorum longus, EHL extensor hallucis longus, PL peroneus lateralis, GS gastrocnemius soleus, TP tibialis posterior muscles). These afferents were not all recorded in the same subject. The activity of each afferent is illustrated by the instantaneous frequency and the corresponding spike train. The dotted lines give the start and end of each writing movement. This figure illustrates the fact that, whatever the movement trajectory used, the whole path can be coded only on the basis of the afferent activity arising from all the ankle muscles
None of the individual primary afferents from any of the ankle muscles therefore fired throughout the entire writing movement. The whole trajectory of the writing movement was necessarily coded in turn by the neural activities of afferents from all the various muscles acting on the ankle joint.
The single afferent responses were highly specific to each graphic sign
The bottom traces of each part of Fig. 1 illustrate an interesting aspect of the single afferent responses. Here the firing patterns of all the EDL primary and secondary afferents recorded (12 and 2 respectively) were pooled and, as can be seen, specific response patterns could be clearly observed for each graphic sign. When the afferent responses of two letters which were very similar in shape were compared, this specificity stood out even more clearly. This is illustrated in Fig. 5, which shows the activity of a primary afferent belonging to the TA muscle when the movement trajectories of graphically similar letters (“b/l” and “m/n”) were being imposed. Again, the bottom traces show the pooled responses of all TA muscle spindle afferents (11 Ia and 2 II). Interestingly, the strong specificity observed with each character means that the proprioceptive sensory feedback may contain features constituting the basis of a letter identification process.
Fig. 5
Similarly shaped but different letters are differently and accurately coded by muscle spindle activity. The various parts of the figure give from top to bottom: the imposed writing movement; the instantaneous frequency and the spike train of a TA primary afferent; the X and Y coordinates of the movement; and the pooled activity of all the TA afferents tested. Comparisons between the afferent patterns evoked by “b” and “l” show that a short burst of activity corresponding to the terminal bar of the “b” was lacking in the “l” feedback pattern (see arrow). While an “m” and an “n” were being formed, three or two firing peaks of discharge characterize each letter respectively (see arrow). The proprioceptive sensory feedback potentially contains features which could be the basis for the letter identification process
The “vector population model” is applicable to “writing-like” movements
In order to take into account the simultaneous proprioceptive neural activity arising from all the muscle spindle afferents in all the muscle groups surrounding the ankle joint, the data were analyzed using the “vector population model”. As described in detail in “Materials and methods,” the application of this model to the data resulted in a “sum vector” for each 200 ms time-window, representing the neural activity of all the muscle spindle afferents from all six muscles. In addition, a “movement vector” representing the velocity and the direction of the actual movement was calculated for each 200 ms time-window.
Figure 6A, B (left) illustrates the development over time of these two groups of vectors during a movement trajectory forming the letter “l”. When comparing these two figures, the close resemblance of the two groups of vectors throughout the trajectory is apparent. This leads to very closed trajectories when placing the vectors tip-to-tail (Fig. 6A, B, right) and illustrates the accuracy of neural vectors in describing the graphic sign.
Fig. 6A–C
The neuronal population vector model. A Left The movement trajectory was represented, every 200 ms, by a vector whose direction corresponds to the direction of the ongoing movement and the amplitude to the instantaneous velocity of the movement in each time-window. Right The same vectors are placed tip-to-tail. B Left The neural activity was represented by sum vectors in each 200 ms time-window. These vectors represent the resulting muscle spindle activity arising from all the six main muscle groups surrounding the ankle joint (for details of these calculations see “Materials and methods”). Right The same vectors are placed tip-to-tail. Note the resemblance between the movement and the neural vectors (left A, B) as well as the actual movement trajectory and the trajectory predicted by neural vectors (right A, B). C Correlation between the direction, taken as absolute values (left) and the amplitude (right) of the movement vectors (ordinates) and the neural vectors (abscissa). The coefficients of the correlation are given on each diagram (A.U. arbitrary units)
Quantitative comparisons were made between the movement and neural vectors by performing linear regression analysis. Interestingly, significant correlations were found to exist both between the direction of the neural vectors and the movement vectors (r=0.96; see Fig. 6C, left) and between the amplitude of the two groups of vectors (r=0.89; see Fig. 6C, right). When performing these correlations for each graphic sign (see Table 1), it can be noted that the coefficient is significant when the neural vectors are compared to the movement vectors of the actual movement trajectory (along the diagonal) and are low when the neural vectors are compared to most of the other movement trajectories.
Discussion
Our general prediction was that tracing a given graphic symbol deformed in a precise and time-ordered manner each of the muscles crossing a given joint. This pattern of mechanical events evoked a specific pattern of lengthening and shortening of the various muscles which in turn generated a particular pattern of activity of the muscle spindle populations lying in these muscles. Taken together as a function of time both single units and whole populations of muscle spindle afferents did generate a dynamic sensory pattern which was specific to each writing movement. This formed what we have called the “proprioceptive signature” of each graphic symbol. When the same graphic sign was repeated several times, this proprioceptive signature was found to be perfectly reproducible and specific enough to be able to distinguish between two letters with very similar graphical shapes, such as “l” and “b” or “m” and “n”. Upon applying the vector population model, we established that the length and direction of the sum vectors accurately described the instantaneous velocity and direction of the “writing-like” movements tested.
Writing a letter activates the muscle spindle afferents arising from all the muscles acting on the joint, generating a “proprioceptive signature” which is specific to this letter
In the three muscles where secondary afferents were found, these afferents responded during most of the movement trajectories. Primary muscle spindle afferents were found in all the tested muscles, and these afferents showed dynamic response patterns with a continuously changing level of activity ranging from a relatively high frequency, to silent gaps. Upon correlating the dynamic activity of the primary muscle spindle afferents from all six muscle groups with the known directional sensitivity of these muscles, it became clear that their responses increased during the phases of the trajectory when the direction of the movement was within the preferred sensory sector of the parent muscle. In addition, their responses peaked when the movement direction was the same as the preferred sensory direction of the parent muscle. Since each ankle muscle has its own sensory sector, partially overlapping that of the synergist muscles, muscle spindle afferents from these muscles will respond in an orderly manner throughout the graphic movement. Thus, an uninterrupted flow of proprioceptive information can only be achieved by collecting the afferent responses from all the muscles which are successively and/or simultaneously stretched. This complex multi-muscle afferent pattern organized in time and in the muscle space seemed to constitute the “proprioceptive signature” of any movement trajectory, since it was found to be highly reproducible when the same movement was repeated and highly specific when two very similar movements were compared.
The responses of the present single afferents followed a general pattern that has been previously described. In a recent study investigating muscle spindle afferent responses during “drawing-like” movements, the same relationship between firing frequency and directional sensitivity of the receptor bearing muscles was observed (Roll et al. 2000). However, in that study, simpler movements were used (corresponding to squares, triangles, ellipses and circles), and they did not involve continuous changes of direction, the crossing of movement trajectories or a naturally varying velocity. The results of the present study therefore show that these general laws are applicable when complex morphokinetic movements are realized.
Ensembles of muscle spindle afferents encode the instantaneous direction and velocity of any “writing-like” movement remarkably accurately
The existence of multi-population coding was first suggested by data obtained using psychophysiological approaches to investigate the perceptual integration of proprioceptive feedbacks using muscle vibration as a tool to activate muscle spindles, and thereby inducing complex illusions of movement in humans (Roll and Gilhodes 1995; Roll et al. 1996; Gilhodes and Roll 2001) or perturbing motor performance (Verschueren et al. 1998; Cordo 1990). In particular, it was established that stimulating of antagonist muscle groups at the same vibration frequency gives rise to illusory positions, whereas asymmetric vibration frequencies evokes an illusory movement. The direction of this movement corresponds to that normally associated with the lengthening of the muscle vibrated at the highest frequency. The larger the difference in vibration frequency between agonist and antagonist muscles, the higher the perceived velocity will be (Gilhodes et al. 1986). Likewise, co-vibrating two muscles acting in orthogonal directions gives rise to an oblique illusion indicating that the integration of the proprioceptive inputs from the two muscles has occurred (Roll and Gilhodes 1995; Roll et al. 1996). When some more complex vibration patterns with well organized timing and frequency were delivered to all the muscle groups of the wrist joint, illusions of drawing or writing with the hand were evoked (Roll and Gilhodes 1995; Gilhodes and Roll 2001; Roll 2003). These psychophysiological data suggest that all the proprioceptive information from all the muscles crossing a joint are continuously integrated and constitute a crucial multi-population input which contributes to the conscious coding of joint position and movement.
Since the muscle spindles are known to display directional tuning properties, it was certainly tempting to investigate the properties of this multi-population coding using the “vector population model”. As mentioned above, when this model was used to analyze the present data, a “sum vector” was calculated for each 200 ms time-window during the movement. This “sum vector” was the weighted and directionally tuned neural activity of all the muscle spindle afferents from all six muscles. The movement itself was represented by additional “movement vectors” calculated every 200 ms. These vectors pointed in the instantaneous direction of the ongoing movement, and their length corresponded to the velocity of the movement. It was clearly shown that the sum vector described the direction and the velocity of the actual movement throughout the trajectory in a very precise manner. A robust representation of movement direction and speed during the drawing of sinusoids and numbers has been previously reported to occur in monkey motor cortical cell populations (Schwartz et al. 1993; Schwartz and Moran 2000) and in human muscle spindle afferent populations (Roll et al. 2000; Ribot-Ciscar et al. 2002). In the present study, the relatively simple movements previously used were replaced by more behaviorally relevant ones, i.e., writing trajectories with a naturally varying velocity. Interestingly, the general laws governing the multi-population coding of these movements were the same as those probably governing any movement.
The writing-like movements used in the present study were imposed on the tip of the foot, along with an isolated movement of the ankle joint. Certainly, most writing movements are performed using the hand, with the movement mainly occurring at the wrist joint. However, in view of the previously observed similarities between the behavior of the muscle spindles in these two joints (see Jones et al. 2001), the idea that the present results may also be applicable to the wrist-hand system does not seem too far fetched. In addition, the psychophysiological experiments discussed above focused mainly on the wrist joint and, as mentioned, the perceptual integration of muscle spindle feedback from the muscles acting on this joint seems to obey similar rules (Roll and Gilhodes 1995). On similar lines, the fact that the present results were obtained under passive conditions, whereas writing involves an active process, does not seem to detract from their general validity since it has been demonstrated that muscle spindles continue to behave like stretch receptors and keep the same tuning characteristics even during voluntary movements (Jones et al. 2001).
Are proprioceptive inputs crucial for writing?
It is recognized these days that cursive writing is based on both morphokinetic components, which are used to form letters, and topokinetic components, which are used to organize the text in the graphic space (Paillard 1991; Teasdale et al. 1993). Although writing is normally learned under permanent visual control, routine writing is less dependent on visual feedback and writing occurs partly under a purely somesthetic control. In the extreme, healthy humans are able to write in the complete absence of visual feedback. Conversely, deafferented patients with a total loss of large proprioceptive and tactile afferents are unable to write at all. Both the morpho and topokinetic components of writing are greatly altered in these patients (Forget 1986; Teasdale et al. 1993; Cole 1995). In addition, a large body of evidence points to the fact that both topokinetic actions like pointing (Redon et al. 1994; Ghez et al. 1990; Gordon et al. 1987; Radovanovic et al. 1998) and morphokinetic ones (Verschueren et al. 1999) are severely altered when the proprioceptive inputs are subjected to muscle tendon vibrations. Research on other lines has clearly demonstrated the ability of populations of muscle spindle afferents to correctly code both spatial position (Jones et al. 2001; Ribot-Ciscar et al. 2003; Bergenheim et al. 2000) and complex morphokinetic movements (Roll et al. 2000; Verschueren et al. 1999). In view of all these results as well as the present data, it can be suggested that proprioceptive information is of crucial importance for the programming and the control of both components of writing.
It is worth noting that writing, like all motor acts, is also associated with tactile feedback (Edin and Johansson 1995). During writing, oriented forces are exerted on the skin covering the distal phalanx of the digits in contact with the pencil. This feedback certainly varies continuously during the tracing trajectory in a way that is probably specific to each written symbol. By recording populations of afferents arising from rapidly and slowly adapting skin receptors located in the distal index phalanx of human subjects, it was recently shown that oriented fingertip forces modify the activity of most afferents and that their responses are also broadly tuned around a preferred direction. The preferred direction varied among the afferents and, accordingly, ensemble of afferents could encode the direction of fingertip forces (Birznieks et al. 2001). The similarities in the tuning properties and ensemble coding of both muscular and tactile feedbacks may facilitate the common processing and integration of sensory data originating from different sensory modalities (Kavounoudias et al. 2001).
To conclude, the results presented in this paper throw light on two important points concerning the proprioceptive coding of writing movements. First, it seems as if the muscle spindle afferents arising from all the muscles crossing the moving joint provide the CNS sequentially with highly specific information that might contribute to a letter identification process. We have referred to the specific response pattern observed here with each letter or other character as the “proprioceptive signature” corresponding to that particular symbol. A second point worth noting emerged when the multi-population coding of writing movements was analyzed using the “vector population model”. This analysis showed that the “sum vector” calculated on the basis of all the directionally tuned and weighted responses from all the muscle spindle afferents from all six ankle muscles accurately described both the instantaneous velocity and direction of the ongoing writing movement.
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Is cursive writing worth teaching?(POINT/COUNTERPOINT)(Discussion).
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Learning & Leading with Technology 39.2 (Sept-Oct 2011): p6(2). (1063 words)
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COPYRIGHT 2011 International Society for Technology in Education
Yes
Each year, more than 1 million visitors come to the Rotunda of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. They come primarily to see three hand-written documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Most visitors know generally what the centuries-old parchment pages say, because they have studied their contents in school. But, on a recent morning, we overheard a girl of about 6 years old telling her parents as they stood in front of the case displaying the Constitution, "It is so pretty. I can't wait to learn cursive. I really want to know what it says." In those three sentences, she articulated many of the reasons why cursive writing is still worth teaching.
First of all, she recognized the beauty of script. Obviously we all appreciate it, or software companies would never have come up with the hundreds of fonts to make our typing appear more attractive. Her observation that it's so pretty reflected her awareness that learning cursive is an artistic skill. As with most visitors, she likely paid particular attention to the signatures that appear on the charter documents. Not only is each pretty in its own way, but each also reflects attributes of the signer's personality.
Second, the 6-year-old sage acknowledged that learning cursive is a milestone on the path to becoming a grownup. Her expression that she can't wait revealed her recognition that learning cursive is an attainable skill. Her optimism left no room for complaints that deciphering is too difficult or that using fine-motor skills is too challenging.
Third, she knew that when you learn to write cursive, you learn to read it too. Her desire to know what it says signaled her understanding that learning cursive is a practical communication skill that will enable her to both convey her ideas (without an electrical device or satellite) and make sense of those penned by others in the past, present, and future.
Although the young girl did not mention it, the mere fact that her parents brought her to see the Charters of Freedom suggests a fourth reason why cursive writing is worth teaching. This reason does not have to do with the acquisition of a skill but involves instead an important ability. Learning cursive contributes to our capacity to imagine. A handwritten document is evidence of a specific moment in time when a fellow human being put pen to paper. Although the document cannot actually transport us back in time, it can connect us to that moment in a very tangible way. This is true not only for the big and famous documents, but for the small and seemingly insignificant ones as well.
Finally, if we do not teach students cursive writing, large portions of our collective past will literally be inaccessible to them. Untyped words will be unintelligible and cease to have meaning. Lessons that might have been learned and inspiration that might have been found will be lost. We are all stewards of information, and, as educators, we play a vital role in preparing our students for the stewardship roles that they too will play. Teaching cursive is an important component of this preparation.
--Lee Ann Potter is the director of education and volunteer programs at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, D.C. She and her team (Stephanie, Michael, Megan, Becky, Dave, Judy, Denise, and Missy) discussed and wrote this response together.
No
Teaching cursive is obsolete. If the goal of writing is communication, then the tool that is used to communicate should not be the focus. The act of communication is the focus. Whether you use print, cursive, or type is not paramount. As educators are mandated to teach more and more information, knowledge, and skills in a 21st century format, some older skills need to be laid to rest. Cursive is one of these skills.
Indiana has already abolished the instruction of cursive, and California mandates it only in grades 4 and 5. And with good reason. Electronic signature software is improving. Most students have access to computers and handheld technologies, such as smartphones. We can teach fine-motor skills in a myriad of other ways, including finger games (such as coin flipping) for dexterity, cutting and pasting, stringing beads, or using manipulatives. If a student demonstrates issues with print, referral to the district occupational therapist for assessment might be warranted.
As a special education teacher, it pains me to see students who are able to multiparagraph compositions but are unable to put pen or pencil to paper to write more than a sentence. Are we not supposed to give weight to content? What about those students who, because of some physical, learning, or cognitive challenge, are literally unable to write? Speech-to-text software allows these students to access the curriculum. Should they be penalized on some arbitrary standard because they are unable to write in cursive? I do not think so.
Many who remember the hours they spent practicing cursive skills wax poetic on this subject. I remember it too. The significant portion of my school year that I spent learning flourishes and circles, trying to link in my mind what I learned as print on paper and page to what I needed to learn for cursive, making sure there were no reversals, and practicing loops and lifts, were hours I could have been working on other skills. I could print quite well. Why did I need to learn how to write all over again? What other skills, abilities, or knowledge could I have learned or expressed in that amount of time?
If we as educators are to maximize student learning, support Universal Design for Learning and access to curriculum for all, and prioritize instruction, then we need to accept that some skills should be moved to the realm of nostalgia and that the tools for those skills should be relegated to collections and museums. Inkwells are now gone from student desks. Fountain pens are novelty items. Cursive instruction, although lovely and a reminder of earlier times, has no place in modern education. We need to look forward, not backward.
--Sharon Eilts teaches special education to middle school students with autism and provides assistive technology assessments and trainings to local school districts. She is an Adobe Education Leader, Apple Distinguished Educator, Google Certified Teacher, HP Teacher Mentor, and Intel Teach to the Future Master Teacher.
Source Citation
Porter, Lee Ann, and Sharon Eilts. "Is cursive writing worth teaching?" Learning & Leading with Technology 39.2 (2011): 6+. Academic OneFile. Web. 21 Feb. 2013.
Document URL
Gale Document Number:A268962236
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Effects of a Kinesthetic Cursive Handwriting Intervention for Grade 4-6 Students
Roberts, Gwenyth I; Siever, Jodi E[pic]; Mair, Judith A[pic]. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy[pic]64. 5[pic] (Sep/Oct 2010): 745-55.
We studied whether Grade 4-6 students who participated in a kinesthetic writing intervention improved in legibility, speed, and personal satisfaction with cursive handwriting.
Small groups of students with handwriting difficulties were seen weekly for 7 wk using a kinesthetic writing system. A repeated measures design was used to evaluate change in global legibility, individual letter formation, specific features of handwriting, and personal satisfaction.
Analysis revealed (1) a significant increase in ratings of global legibility (p 4 mo may be required to produce ongoing increases in the speed of handwriting. A reason for the lack of progress during the postintervention phase may be that these students were not expected to practice cursive writing skills in the context of classroom work (Asher, 2006). In this study, low teacher expectation was reported for written work to be completed in cursive handwriting, and the students may not have chosen to practice their newly learned skills.
A higher percentage of Grade 6 students improved in legibility than Grade 4 or 5 students, although this finding was not statistically significant, perhaps because of the relatively small sample size. Graham, Berninger, et al. (1998) found that children's handwriting became more legible with advancing elementary grades. The Grade 6 students had slower speed of handwriting after the intervention. They may have taken more time to demonstrate improvement in the quality of handwriting. Weintraub and Graham (1998) found that when children were asked to write quickly, there was a corresponding decline in legibility; when asked to write neatly, their speed of handwriting decreased.
Personal satisfaction improved in the students after the intervention program. Moreover, parents and teachers perceived a noteworthy improvement in the students' feelings toward handwriting. The cooperative, smallgroup format and the improvements in cursive handwriting skills may have contributed to this improved attitude (Townsend&Hicks, 1997). It is possible that the students reported improved attitudes toward handwriting because they knew that they were not alone in facing their handwriting challenges (Wentzel & Caldwell, 1997).
Future Research
Further research is needed to determine the intervention program-or combination of intervention components- and timing of the intervention that is most effective (Asher, 2006; Berninger et al., 1997). Teacher and student expectations regarding style and use of written output needs to be explored more fully. Examination of this program's effectiveness when delivered by others, such as teachers, would be valuable. Explicit instruction and practice in the motor aspect of handwriting in the regular classroom has been recommended (Asher, 2006; Berninger et al., 1997; Ste.-Marie et al., 2004), including monitoring of students who present with handwriting challenges (Graham et al., 2000). It may be that some handwriting challenges would be reduced or eliminated with implementation of a program such as Loops and Other Groups in the classroom. Use of a structured program in the classroom may eliminate the need for referral and intervention by occupational therapy for some students. Limited resources could then focus on the students who would benefit most from this service (Asher, 2006).
Limitations
Several limitations, some inherent in intervention studies with children, may have affected the results of this study. The study used a small, convenience sample, which may have been biased by teacher and parent interest in the study. Some teachers may have identified their students as having handwriting difficulties because of problems observed in print style. The sample was not geographically representative of all children in Calgary. It is not known what influence teaching style and instruction in the classroom had on the performance of the participants. Data were incomplete, because not all of the children attended all of the intervention sessions, some children were lost to follow-up, and some test forms were not completed adequately for analysis. Hence, given the small sample size based on available data at each time point and multiple testing required, caution needs to be taken when interpreting the results.
Conclusions
The objective of this study was to determine whether Grade 4-6 students who participated in a kinesthetic writing intervention would improve in legibility, speed, and their personal satisfaction with handwriting. The group of students recruited was primarily boys with handwriting challenges. Global legibility and components of legibility improved, as well as speed of handwriting and personal satisfaction with handwriting. The Loops and Other Groups program appears to have had an impact on developing handwriting skills with these students, particularly in components that have been reported to be related to kinesthetic feedback, with better performance on copying tasks and with narrow-ruled paper. This program can be used and recommended by occupational therapists with greater confidence, with the provision of supplementary instruction in word spacing. Further study is required to confirm these findings. In addition, further evaluation of teacher expectations for cursive handwriting, the ongoing integration of skills into daily compositional tasks, and the use of this program in the classroom would be beneficial.
Acknowledgments
The study team acknowledges the children, parents, and teachers who participated in the study. We thank the Decision Support Research Team, particularly Suzanne Tough, Brenda Wilson, and Karen Tofflemire; intervention teams (Aynsley Wennberg, Chandra Kipfer); research staff (Brigitte Roy, Gina Blumes); and leadership support (Lori Craig, Darlene Winder, Jane Pollack). Financial support of the Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation and the Occupational Therapy Service and Regional School Health Program of Alberta Health Services is acknowledged.
Sidebar
Roberts, G. I., Siever, J. E., & Mair, J. A. (2010). Effects of a kinesthetic cursive handwriting intervention for grade 4-6 students. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 64, 745-755. doi: 10.5014/ajot.2010.08128
References
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AuthorAffiliation
Gwenyth I. Roberts, MSc, BOT, is Occupational Therapist/Clinical Leader, Regional School Health Program, Alberta Health Services, and Occupational Therapy Research Affiliate: Decision Support Research Team, Alberta Children's Hospital, Alberta Health Services, Acadia Community Health Centre, 132-151 86th Avenue SE, Calgary, Alberta T2H 3A5 Canada; gwen.roberts@ albertahealthservices.ca
Jodi E. Siever, MSc, is Senior Analyst/Biostatistician, Public Health Innovation and Decision Support, Population and Public Health, Alberta Children's Hospital, Alberta Health Services, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Judith A. Mair is Occupational Therapist, Neurosciences Program, Alberta Children's Hospital, Alberta Health Services, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Copyright American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc. Sep/Oct 2010
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