Cursive writing as a creative and personal act.

Educational implications for the first year of primary school.

Abstract

The act of writing in cursive can appear as a natural and in a certain sense automatic gesture, however it is not something innate or spontaneous, but is the result of learning and exercise. In an age that increasingly calls for the use of keyboards or touchscreens, the article asks whether it is significant, or even indispensable, to accompany pupils towards the development of the graphic gesture, towards learning handwriting and what's more cursive. While cursive educates the child in multisensory learning, in which motor skills, spatial perception and language are intertwined, word processing tends to separate conceptual processing from motor execution, simplifying the gesture until it is almost transparent. While this may be an advantage in terms of speed and accessibility, it risks depriving the pupil of a richer education. Cursive writing is configured as a privileged field of daily creativity. Each sign, while respecting shared rules and alphabetical conventions, is always unique and original. Bearing in mind the overall picture that emerges from the research, accompanied by frequent reviews and meta-analyses, the essay concludes by sketching the elements of a tool for evaluating the validity of teaching paths for learning manual cursive writing in an Italian-speaking context.