The time has come for revenge italics. For years it was shelved, considered unfashionable, old, and complicated. Surpassing the printed style that is typical of digital writing, it is easier and faster to learn. One in 5 children cannot write in cursive. However, now is the time to get back to using it. Experts theorize about it, and several US states are putting it into practice, starting with California, where a new law requiring cursive instruction for all elementary school children takes effect in January. Michigan lawmakers also pushed a bill to pressure schools to teach cursive writing. There are also ad hoc contests, such as Cursive Is Cool organized by the Campaign for Cursive, a project of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation.
The return of the American states to italics is a significant fact considering that in the United States itself, several states have decided to drop cursive writing. It was 2010, when the Common Core State Standards, a kind of guide to make American public schools the same in all states, removed the teaching of cursive from the curriculum, and only some American states continued to use it. in Italy, there was never an official abolition, but calligraphy exercises disappeared from most elementary classes for many years.
Many teachers no longer ask children to fill entire pages with a single letter of the alphabet, as they once did, to learn to write correctly with the correct proportions and make sure to stay in the margins. An exercise that once occupied the first weeks of first grade and which has disappeared. Or at least it doesn’t get as much space anymore. Children learn to write in upper and lower case letters, for example by copying a printout that they have read on a tablet or smartphone.
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The work is simplified, but perhaps too much. For professionals, learning to write in beautiful handwriting brings various benefits: “Knowing how to hold a pencil with a well-adjusted nib or a pen – explains Pietro Lucisano, president of Sird, the Italian Society for Educational Research and professor. of experimental pedagogy at the university The Wisdom of Rome – means being able to perform highly concentrated exercises. This is crucial because we also learn from our movements: some activities that involve the acquisition of style have a direct impact on the brain. Italics make you use your brain. Just like knowing how to paint with a brush with awareness. Cursive writing is a serious challenge for a third grader, but it teaches him to handle the pen with the right finesse. If we remove gestures, we also remove control and attention in fine movements, which impacts the ability to learn. It is important to return to the teaching of writing and also to educate children about the beauty that is the basis of Made in Italy, which distinguishes us in the world.”
Pescara, school fails him: dyslexic student promoted by TAR
Nowadays, an increasing percentage of students show serious problems with the ability to write in cursive. A study conducted by researchers at Polyclinic Umberto I and Sapienza University of Rome shows how 1 in 5 primary school children don’t know how to use it. In its place are printed letters and typing on smartphones. The research was published in the journal Occupational Therapy in Health Care by scientists Carlo Di Brina (child neuropsychiatrist Umberto I), Barbara Caravale (La Sapienza University), and Nadia Mirante (Bambino Gesù Hospital). “We photographed how the school population of Roman children write – explained Di Brina and Caravale – and after almost two years we saw that 21.6% of children are at risk of developing writing problems. 10% of children have ‘dysgraphic’ handwriting, but this is a lot of children: too many for it to be a disorder.”
