Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting by Kitty Burns Florey (Melville House, 2009) is part memoir, part history, part examination of handwriting's place in an increasingly digital world. Like Florey, I identify with my own script (13); and I found the whole thing fascinating (okay, I might have skipped the chapter on graphology).

The section on handwriting programs in Chapter 5, "Is Handwriting Important?" is particularly relevant to parents whose children are learning cursive in school. I'm now convinced that it doesn't make sense to teach kids to print and then a few years later switch them to cursive. Just teach them a sixteenth-century Italic hand right from the start, I say! [Note that this is not as crazy as it sounds; the Portland (OR) Public Schools have been using the Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting System for 24 years.]

Any anecdotal evidence re:handwriting programs? Our county uses Handwriting Without Tears: I don't like it.

[Nonfiction Monday is at Charlotte's Library. Thank you, Charlotte!]