Natasha Bita’s column (Writing lessons ‘for 15 minutes a week’, The Australian,14/7) confirms one of the deepest of concerns about the reshaping of educational priorities. The teaching of handwriting, a basic communication tool, has in far too many instances all but been abandoned.

I frequently have the chance to observe the challenges handwriting imposes on people using pens and pencils on paper. TV vision of people (of all ages) writing, reinforce the dismay I feel that handwriting is no longer taught in schools.

How to hold pencils and pens, how to position paper and how to sit comfortably when writing and importantly, how to form and join letters into a cursive writing format, are rudiments of understanding that assist handwritten communication.

For the growing numbers without these skills, handwriting looks to be everything from an uncomfortable action to pure torture.

Keyboard skills are important. So too is the ability to write legibility and with a degree of confidence and comfort that nowadays seems to be no longer educationally relevant.