One of the main advantages of manuscript is that students encounter these letters in books. “Studies show that spending two years learning manuscript writing strengthens letter recognition and helps make writing automatic,” White explained.
On the other hand, cursive can be faster. “You don’t have to pick up your pencil every time,” White said. She also noted that students who learn to write and recognize cursive are better equipped to read historical documents and primary sources, such as the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Some students struggle with cursive, while others find it a welcome alternative. “For older kids who never developed legible manuscript writing but recognize letters, cursive can feel like a fresh start,” she added.
Developing automaticity
Whether students learn manuscript or cursive, White stressed the importance of practicing until they no longer have to think about forming letters, which is when automaticity is gained. “Handwriting is only functional if it’s automatic. That happens when students make each letter the same way every time,” she said. There are multiple correct ways to form letters, but consistency is key.
White compared it to learning to ride a bike. “You’re not thinking about where to put your feet or hands,” she said. “If you were learning to ride a bicycle, but every day it was a different bicycle and things were in a slightly different place, you’d still be falling off and skinning your knee.”
Teachers can help students of all ages by demonstrating letter formation on a large sheet of paper or a whiteboard while verbalizing the process using words like curve, slant, separate, cross, and connecting stroke. This multimodal approach helps students see and hear how letters are made. White also encourages students to verbalize the steps themselves while writing to reinforce the connection between movement and letter formation. “Once the movement is automatic, then they can concentrate on the other pieces,” she said.
Writing Words and Phrases
Mastering individual letters is important, but White emphasized that students should quickly move on to writing words and phrases. “If students only memorize how to write separate letters, it doesn’t integrate with spelling and reading skills,” she said.
She recommended introducing a small group of letters and having students practice reading and writing words using them. White recommends teachers avoid asking students to spell words containing letters they haven’t learned to write. This approach helps students recognize orthographic patterns—common letter groupings in English. “If children are drawing each letter as a separate entity every time, they’re not going to get that benefit,” White said.
Although handwriting instruction may seem slow or outdated, White believes it empowers students. She recalled a student named Sasha who was excited to write his name on a birthday card for his father. When he wrote an “S” backwards, he wasn’t discouraged. Instead, he corrected himself with confidence. “He put his hand on his mom’s shoulder and said, ‘Mom, don’t worry. I made a mistake. I know how to fix it,’” White recounted.
Episode Transcript
Nimah Gobir: Welcome to MindShift, the podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Nimah Gobir
Nimah Gobir: These days, it feels like everyone is looking for the next big innovation in education. Schools are adopting one-to-one technology programs, where every student has a tablet or laptop. New programs promise to solve every learning challenge you can think of. But in all of this excitement, are we forgetting the basics?
Nimah Gobir: When was the last time you thought about writing by hand? If you’re an elementary school or TK teacher, the answer is probably all the time—maybe even in your sleep. But for many of us in a digital world, handwriting is becoming an afterthought.
Nimah Gobir: That’s a big mistake, according to Dr. Nancy Cushen White, an educator and language therapist. She says handwriting isn’t just about writing letters—it’s a powerful tool for literacy learning. And just because adults don’t think much about writing by hand doesn’t mean kids don’t love it—or benefit from it.
Nimah Gobir: Stick around to hear more from Nancy about strategies for teaching handwriting and whether cursive is on its way out, Stay tuned!
Nimah Gobir: Nancy Cushen White has spent decades trying to figure out how to teach kids to read and process language in a way that sticks. But that journey started with real challenges—challenges that she didn’t even see coming at first.
Nancy Cushen White: My first full year of teaching, I was assigned to an elementary school in San Francisco, and it was a General Ed fourth grade class, and there were 37 children.
Nimah Gobir: Right away, she realized some skills were missing.
Nancy Cushen White: There were a few kids who could read, but that was not the norm. That was the exception, and I didn’t know enough then to even realize what a serious problem I had on my hands. I just thought well I have credentials in three states. I’ll do everything I learned and I’ll take care of this problem.
Nancy Cushen White: I tried everything I’d been taught. It didn’t take very long, and it didn’t work very well. And so. That began my quest for finding something that would work.
Nimah Gobir: She discovered that handwriting is an essential part of learning language. Writing by hand strengthens letter recognition and supports memory and recall—especially when taught alongside reading and spelling.
Nancy Cushen White: All language skills are connected. So handwriting isn’t in a separate part of the brain from reading or spelling. And obviously handwriting involves motor skills, but it’s much more than a motor skill. It’s very connected to language
Nimah Gobir: Students are typically taught two types of handwriting in school: manuscript, where letters are distinct and unconnected, and cursive, where letters flow together.
Nancy Cushen White: There are so the advantages to manuscript one being the print or the manuscript is more like what they read in books. So when they are learning to write the letters, they’re learning to write the letters that they’re seeing in books that they’re reading.
Nancy Cushen White: There are studies that show that students who have learned manuscript print letters, once they’ve learned to write those letters, if they see one of those letters in print, whether they’re writing it or not, the part of the brain that is that functions when they are writing is activated.
Nimah Gobir: Cursive, on the other hand, has its own perks.
Nancy Cushen White: Cursive can be faster. You don’t have to pick up your pencil every time.
Nancy Cushen White: I don’t know if it’s because of what happened to them when they were trying to learn it in school, but there are people who really hate it.
Nimah Gobir: For those who struggled with cursive, there’s good news—it’s falling out of use. Some students today can’t read cursive at all. There is actually this joke that adults of a certain generation can use cursive to write secret messages to each other that kids can’t read. But jokes aside, there are real implications. While students who can’t read cursive are still literate, they might struggle to read historical documents like the U.S. Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.
Nimah Gobir: It is not proven that either manuscript or cursive writing is best. What does matter is that students get so much practice writing that they don’t have to think about forming letters. So, how can teachers ensure handwriting becomes second nature?
Nancy Cushen White: It’s going to become automatic if they make each letter the same way every time.
Nancy Cushen White: There are many correct ways to form, both manuscript and cursive letters. Think of all the font. But children need to be taught one way that they practice automaticity. Then they don’t have to think about how to make the letter. That becomes automatic.
Nimah Gobir: When students write letters the same way many times, it becomes muscle memory.
Nancy Cushen White: If you were taking notes right now, you would be thinking about what I’m saying. You might be thinking about how to spell some words, but you wouldn’t be thinking about how to form the letters because it’s automatic. Your brain knows that. it’s like jumping on a bicycle and heading off. You’re not thinking where you’re putting your feet or where you’re putting your hands.
Nancy Cushen White: If you were learning to ride a bicycle but every day it was a different bicycle and things were in a slightly different place? You’d still be falling off and skinning your knee, or at least I would be, yeah.
Nimah Gobir: One of the best ways to teach handwriting is through modeling. Nancy talks about what she is doing as she writes a new letter. This makes it a multimodal learning experience for students because they are able to see her make the letter on a big piece of paper or a whiteboard and hear her talk about it. Take a lower case, cursive letter “L”
Nancy Cushen White: Starts on the baseline, curves up two spaces, curves back slightly, and then slant down, crossing on the midline, down almost to the baseline and up for a connecting stroke, L. And then I might do that again. And then I ask another student in the class, tell me how to make an L.
Nancy Cushen White: You want them to use those words to guide themselves as long as they need to and to have the same words. So curve, slant, separate, cross, connecting stroke, using the same words for all the letters.
Nancy Cushen White: But it’s not memorizing it. It’s really connecting it to that movement. And then once the movement is automatic, then they can concentrate on the other pieces.
Nimah Gobir: But simply copying letters over and over isn’t enough. Students need to write words, phrases, and sentences.
Nancy Cushen White: I think sometimes when it’s taught just as the motor skill, it misses that connection because it is a language skill.
Nancy Cushen White: In situations where a student gets tutoring just for handwriting and they learn all the letters, they can write all the letters, but they’re not using it functionally. They’re not writing words or phrases. So they’ve memorized something, but it’s not connected to something functional. And that’s a really important piece. And so most of the research supports teaching it as part of that literacy network.
Nancy Cushen White: In a lesson, teach it slowly in a sequence and then have children reading and writing the words with those letters. You don’t ask them to spell anything that they can’t write the letters for.
Nimah Gobir: As students learn to write the letters in the words they’re spelling, they begin to recognize common letter patterns and structures.
Nimah Gobir: Today, kids are using computers earlier than ever, which means they may be missing out on handwriting’s cognitive benefits.
Nancy Cushen White: When you’re typing, just pushing the keys, you’re not getting the kind of motor feedback. There’s not a unique sequence of movements for forming each letter when you’re hitting the key on the keyboard as when you’re writing.
Nimah Gobir: Because writing is so embodied, you are able to make memory associations with what you’re seeing and hearing. Yes, writing by hand is slower, but that’s actually a good thing.
Nancy Cushen White: Because I have to think about what I’m gonna write because I don’t have time to write everything, I actually have to pay attention to the content. I have to decide what is the most important thing.
Nimah Gobir: Handwriting may not sound exciting, but kids love it. There’s something powerful about learning to write—even if it’s just your own name.
Nancy Cushen White:There was a little first grader and his name was Sasha. And his mom wrote us a note about halfway through, and she said his father’s birthday had occurred, and he was writing his name. And he wrote one of the Ss backwards.
