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ENCORE: Treasured Ink - Is Cursive a Thing of the Past?

Between typing and texting we are a lot less likely to put pen to paper. What's lost when we don't? 

Many of today's students aren't required to write in cursive, and sometimes, they aren't even taught how. 

According to Donald Bear, who is a professor of literacy studies at Iowa State University, our culture's move toward technology explains the change, but even with the emphasis on developing keyboarding skills, it’s still worthwhile to teach handwriting.

“It’s well documented that there’s a connection between learning to read and learning to write. It has to do with letter recognition. It’s also been shown that there is greater activation of certain processes in the brain when you write by hand,” he says.

This hour on Talk of Iowa, Charity Nebbe talks with Bear about the science of handwriting. Greg Prickman, who is head of special collections and university archives at the University of Iowa, also joins the conversation.

toi140702.mp3
Charity Nebbe talks with Greg Prickman and Donald Bear about the value and science behind learning to write in cursive.

  *This show originally aired on July 2, 2014. 

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Charity Nebbe is the host of IPR's Talk of Iowa
Lindsey Moon is IPR's Senior Digital Producer