soulsight®

Having a child in elementary school still leaning how to print made me interested in a segment on CBS last Sunday morning reported by Tracy Smith.

It was an interesting piece that made me question, “Will penmanship and the written word disappear and be replaced by keyboarding?” Americans send 294 billion emails and nearly five billion text messages EVERY DAY. (My closest friends will tell you I am responsible for a good number of those text messages.)

After doing some history, I found that it was not till the turn of the century that penmanship was taught in our schools. Children were often taught to read and write penmanship, but not how to print. Someone as monumental as Abraham Lincoln would have never have printed, only used penmanship.

Early typographers were known for their artistic and ornate styles, now mimicked in many fonts by their very names. You might recognize some fonts by the names of the seventeenth and eighteenth century writing masters: George Bickham, George Shelley and George Snell. Interesting that they are all named George?

Font’s like Spencerian script are actually based on the style of penmanship of Platt Rogers Spencer, who used his style in American business handwriting. The Spencerian Script is the script that we today recognize as the iconic Coca-Cola and Ford Motor Company brandmarks.

The Zaner-Bloser style is one of the main styles of handwriting taught to children in the U.S. to this day, a style that was developed in 1904.

A newer method of teaching penmanship was also developed in the mid-1970's by Donald Neal Thurber called D'Nealian style. It uses slanted letters to teach printing, in order for children to transition more easily to cursive writing.

Researchers in education suggest that children with the best penmanship receive better grades than their peers with not so good handwriting skills. (I think I will continue to make my kids practice.)
Should our penmanship get better as we get older? Some experts say that our best penmanship peaks in 4th grade!

One of the best pieces of technology ever invented was the pencil and paper. It still remains the quickest way to gather a thought or an idea. The most economical and available method to date. It would be a shame to lose the magic of an eraser and the smudge marks from wet ink.

Now that keyboards, email and texting have become a quick and effective form of communication, I hope penmanship and writing survive for the sake of authenticity and personalization. There is nothing more personal and endearing than receiving a handwritten letter from someone you care about. In most cases, you can almost hear that person reading that letter to you. A bit of their personality comes through their message by how they dot their i’s and cross their t’s. Penmanship and handwriting is part of what makes us feel more human and connected to one another, and this is because it’s tactile and a personal art.

Write a handwritten memo, a letter to your child, or a note to your spouse. I’m sure it’s something they will keep longer than a text message or an email.

More about penmanship:
"Handwriting in America: A Cultural History" by Tamara Plakins Thornton (Yale Univ. Press)
margaretshepherd.com
zaner-bloser.com