Interesting article Knute - not sure I agree with all it's trying to deduce, but thanks for posting it! The thing I'm skeptical of, having the experience of raising a dysgraphic child, is the implication that if handwriting is no longer emphasized something large will be lost in our "broader educational development". Why wouldn't our adaptable brains find other ways of developing? What might happen if we look a step further in time and brain development than the study did - isn't it possible that we'd not only find our brains compensated adequately in other ways, but perhaps something even more amazing in terms of development was able to unfold?
Having watched my ds' development, I suspect dysgraphia prevented him from development of *early* reading - but once he cracked the code, he learned to read almost overnight, and that happened in kindergarten. We'll probably never know if the reason he couldn't really identify an "F" or "P" clearly on his kindy entrance interview, or the reason he wouldn't play alphabet games like other preschool kids was due to dysgraphia-related challenges or simply his meant-to-be developmental curve, but by the end of first grade he was able to read college-level material. Likewise I just can't see that there's been an impact on his academics outside of skills directly impacted by dysgraphia.
Re cursive, I had heard early on that cursive is easier for many dysgraphics to learn than printing. Our neuropsych told us it is because the pencil isn't lifted off the paper as frequently as it is in printing. Our school didn't teach cursive until 4th grade, but ds was able to learn to write cursive with daily practice in the classroom and his cursive looked very neat and legible (compared to his printing), and cursive was his preferred method of handwriting for the two years (4th and 5th grade) that it was actively being taught in his classroom. Then the summer after 5th grade happened, and in the fall when he returned to the classroom, he'd lost all memory of how to form cursive letters. For a year or so he could still sign his name in cursive because he'd had to repeat that enough to remember how to do it each time, but today, just a few years later, he has difficulty even remembering how to sign his name in cursive and usually defaults to print.
polarbear
ps - our kids' preschool's philosophy was that children learn to write before they learn to read - I'm not sure if that's a typical Montessori approach or not, but it was definitely a different approach than other preschools in our area. My friends' kids in other preschools were learning letter-sound correspondence, our kids were tracing letters in sand, making "rainbow" letters etc and then writing out words etc.
Last edited by polarbear; 06/03/14 09:40 AM.
