It has been argued that handwriting is slowly becoming less important in favour of typing. This is because handwriting seems to take up more time and effort than typing does. The underlying...Show moreIt has been argued that handwriting is slowly becoming less important in favour of typing. This is because handwriting seems to take up more time and effort than typing does. The underlying objective of this study is to examine the importance of handwriting. The aim of this study is to determine what factors are important to take into consideration when it comes to handwriting and to provide further evidence for the importance of handwriting as opposed to typing. This study covered four main topics in order to examine the importance of handwriting. This was done by looking at whether handwriting practice and the teaching of handwriting was decreasing in schools, then by looking at the differences between handwriting and typing, before establishing the importance of handwriting by examining the movement involved. Finally it drew a connection between handwriting and literacy. In order to examine these topics, a multitude of sources were examined and consulted. These ranged from neurological research articles, where the results were achieved by test subjects, to organizations testing the literacy of people, to websites that described concerns voiced by educators. This dissertation aimed to give an accurate representation of these sources by citing them appropriately. Taken together, these sources provided an overview into the main topic of the importance of handwriting. From this study it became clear that cursive handwriting is no longer an obligatory part of school curriculum in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and that there is a decrease in proper handwriting. In addition it also identified that bad handwriting can have disastrous consequences in professional fields. In regards to the differences between handwriting and typing, it has become clear that handwriting has a significant influence on the recognition of characters that typing lacks. Furthermore, handwriting aids people in their memory retention, helps build more complicated sentences than with typing, and leads to a better composition of a written text. Finally it described that handwriting and literacy were connected and a better handwriting performance lead to a better reading performance. It was concluded in the dissertation that handwriting continues to take up an important position in education, and should therefore not be given a secondary place next to typing. Handwriting attributes to academic success and higher literacy rates and bad handwriting would soon lead to a worse literacy rate. The study has indicated that a further education in handwriting should always be present in order to sustain the future for literacy, readability of text, and memorization of characters.Show less
