Natasha Bita’s column (Writing lessons ‘for 15 minutes a week’, 14 July 2022confirms one of the deepest concerns about the reshaping of educational priorities. The teaching of handwriting, an essential communication tool, has, in far too many instances and far too many countries, 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.