To the editor:

Handwriting matters: does cursive? Research shows that legible cursive averages no faster than print-writing of equal/greater legibility. (Sources are available on request.)

The fastest, clearest handwriters avoid cursive: joining the most easily joined letter-combinations, leaving others unjoined, with print-like shapes of letters whose printed and cursive shapes disagree.

Reading cursive (which still matters) can be learned in just 30 to 60 minutes.

Why not teach this vital skill, and NOT leave it to depend on writing in cursive?

Educated adults are quitting cursive. In 2012, handwriting teachers were surveyed at a conference run by cursive textbook publisher Zaner-Bloser … Only 37 percent wrote cursive; 8 percent printed. Most — 55 percent — wrote with some elements like print-writing, others resembling cursive.

Cursive’s boosters say cursive justifies anything said or done to push it. They repeatedly claim research support: citing studies that were misquoted or otherwise misrepresented by the claimant or by some other misrepresenter whom the claimant innocently trusts.

Re signatures, brace yourself: in state and federal law, cursive signatures have no special legal validity over other kinds. (Ask an attorney!)

Questioned document examiners find that the least forgeable signatures are plainest. Most cursive signatures are loose scrawls: the rest are fairly complicated: easing forgery.

Mandating cursive to save handwriting is like mandating stovepipe hats and crinolines to save clothes.

Kate Gladstone

Director, the World Handwriting Contest

CEO, Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Work

Albany, New York