Reception teachers show huge relief when I point out that Ofsted doesn’t require them to teach cursive writing. But then they say ‘Isn’t it good for dyslexic children?’

When I ask them how their weakest readers (i.e. potentially dyslexic children) are coping with cursive writing, they always say:

• Boys, in particular, find it massively harder than printing.
• Children can’t write the word in one continuous flow. They need to stop to think about each letter-sound correspondence as they write. 
• Children can’t read back what they’ve written – neither can the teacher. Words are buried in a spider’s web of strokes. Many children add the joins once they have written the word making their writing even more illegible.
• Worst of all - they spend more time teaching cursive writing than teaching reading.