The Importance of Teaching Handwriting August 2006 After a long period of neglect in education, attention to teaching handwriting in the primary grades may finally be returning. This attention can benefit many youngsters, including those with learning disabilities (LDs) involving handwriting, which may accompany reading disabilities, writing disabilities, nonverbal learning disabilities, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Although word-processing programs and assistive technology are undeniably boons to children with writing problems, technological advances do not eliminate the need for explicit teaching of handwriting. Furthermore, very modest amounts of instructional time in the earliest grades ? kindergarten and grade one ? may help to prevent later writing difficulties for many children. Why handwriting is important Contrary to the view that handwriting is a trivial skill, handwriting actually is important for a number of reasons. One involves the concept of mental resources to which I have alluded in several other columns, in relation to reading and mathematics as well as writing. Just as effortful word decoding may impair reading comprehension, or lack of automatic recall may reduce the mental resources available for learning advanced computational algorithms in math, labored handwriting creates a drain on mental resources needed for higher-level aspects of writing, such as attention to content, elaboration of details, and organization of ideas. Because handwriting is a basic tool used in many subjects ? taking notes, taking tests, and doing classroom work and homework for almost every content area as well as in language arts classes ? poor handwriting can have a