A handwriting educator says students must be taught handwriting alongside typing skills in order to succeed in "hybrid" modern learning environments.
The Ministerial Advisory Group recently recommended grammar and handwriting lessons, including cursive handwriting, for primary-aged students as part of a revisal of the English curriculum.
The report said writing by hand was better than typing for students to learn spelling, reading and development of ideas and vocabulary, which was met with backlash from some teachers about the relevancy of handwriting in a modern learning environment.
Handwriting educator Belinda Blick-Duggan told Breakfast proper penmanship had become a lost art "over the last few years".
"I think people are starting to recognise now that handwriting is actually one of those things that is really crucial to learning and literacy development."
She said handwriting is important for the literacy development including letter to sound and phonics knowledge for younger students.
"All the scientific research is showing at the moment that it is really important for memory retention so the actual skill of learning handwriting, becoming fluent writers, is really important."
Blick-Duggan said she conducted her own survey two years ago which found roughly 83% of teachers were coming out of college with "no understanding of the importance of teaching handwriting".
"That's a huge percentage of our workforce that have not been upskilled."
With more than 20 years experience working in schools across the country and the world, Blick-Duggan's company The Write Lesson provides video lessons on letter formation to suppor teachers worldwide in their teaching of English handwriting.
"To learn something new, we need to be physically writing it," she said.
AUT's education facility said handwriting and fine motor skill development was "content included in select courses".
"Professional knowledge for handwriting is also developed while students are on school practicum as each school has unique handwriting policies," it said in a statement.
Blick-Duggan said modern learners who operate in a hybrid environment must understand when it is appropriate to type and when it is better to write by hand, such as when studying for a test or exam, to process information on a deeper level.
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