According to three advocates for cursive writing, it is a powerful tool for learning. While many predicted its demise after the widespread adoption of typing and computers, it is indeed making a comeback; some states have mandated it in the elementary years.

Please note that this author learned cursive, with extreme difficulty. I am left-handed, and my pen curled around my hand, smudging my hand with ink. Though we were taught via the Palmer Method, my handwriting today is almost indecipherable. Though I spent hours trying to draw circles, my handwriting is a scrawl. But I think I did get benefits from learning to write “by hand,” including being able to read other people’s handwriting.

The authors–Elizabeth DeWitt, Cheryl Lundy Swift, and Christina Brett–wrote:

In a world where digital devices are everywhere, it’s easy to wonder if handwriting still matters. We’ve all heard the argument that keyboards and screens have made this foundational skill obsolete. But research keeps confirming what many teachers have known for years: Handwriting is more than just penmanship — it’s an important part of a child’s thinking and literacy development, particularly during the formative years of pre-K through fifth grade.

A recent study, “Writing by Hand Helps Children Learn Letters Better,” reinforces this, showing that the physical act of forming letters strengthens memory and accelerates learning. Far from being a relic of the past, handwriting is a powerful tool that prepares young students for reading, improves their cognitive abilities and builds the groundwork for becoming confident, capable writers. Watch: Gen Z Can’t Sign Their Names, Making Mail-In Ballots Invalid.

The power of handwriting comes from the way it engages multiple senses at once. Unlike typing, which relies on a single, repetitive motion, handwriting activates multiple areas of the brain by combining visual, auditory and kinesthetic input. When children form a letter, they’re engaging in a dynamic process that solidifies its identity in their mind. This graphomotor movement — the coordination of hand and eye to produce letters — is key to remembering them. Explicitly teaching children to form letters by hand, even through simple methods like having them copy words from a correctly written letter, word or sentence, helps them learn and better retain letter and word structures.

This practice has a powerful ripple effect. Once letter formation becomes automatic, a child’s brain is freed to focus on higher-level thinking. Instead of struggling to recall how to write a letter, a child can concentrate on building sentences, expressing thoughts and ideas, and crafting coherent narratives. This is how fluent writing develops. And the benefits extend well beyond childhood: One study found college students who took notes by hand remembered more than those who typed, likely because writing by hand forces the brain to process and summarize information, not just copy it.