| Summary: | <p> The focus of my study was to explore if teachers think handwriting should be included as part of the core curriculum. The aim of the project was to observe and discuss if handwriting instruction is beneficial in the second grade. For my research, data was collected from observations, surveys, and interviews. The benefits and disadvantages of handwriting instruction were also researched. In recent years, each year that I taught, the handwriting of the students has become more and more illegible. Students had difficulty putting their thoughts onto the paper. It was taking them longer and longer just to write simple sentences, especially my students who were identified with learning disabilities. They could verbally come up with great ideas to discuss but as soon as I informed the students that it was time to put those thoughts to paper, the struggles began. Students would ask me how to form letters, spacing was nonexistent, and I could not read what they wrote. Moreover, the students could not even read their own writing. The study began with a survey of the teachers’ beliefs and experiences with handwriting instruction. Observations of teachers’ instruction and lessons were conducted. The findings were astounding. Manuscript handwriting instruction took place in kindergarten as students spent a week on each letter. There was no formal handwriting instruction, manuscript or cursive, in first grade and in second grade cursive handwriting instruction began in the last six weeks of school. If students did not master how to write a letter of the alphabet in kindergarten then it was up to the students to figure it out unless a teacher caught it and provided some type of instruction. Only 2 out of 6 teachers had any formal training or instruction on how to teach children to write.</p><p>
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