Shall We Stop Teaching Cursive?

Is it a still-necessary skill or a slow and outdated method for getting ideas across? Cursive handwriting is still part of the curricula in many elementary schools, but should it be? 

A recent BAM Radio show grappled with this question, unleashing a larger debate about what kinds of skills children will need to write and communicate fluently in a 21st century world (keyboarding, anyone?), at what age they should be taught them, and whether fine motor skills are given a greater chance to develop when one takes a pen to paper. The show features Stephen Graham, a professor of special education and literacy at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Anne Trubek, an associate professor of rhetoric & composition at Oberlin College and the author of a fascinating Miller-McCune article, “Handwriting is History.“

BAM Radio has captured several compelling conversations lately, including a discussion of whether class sizes really matter and a talk with Doug Lemov, co-founder of Uncommon Schools Network and author of Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College.  Another segment — which I participated in and will be writing about soon — takes on the question of how early is too early to teach a young child to read.