Yes, please send those three further paragraphs!

My interest here is that I teach handwriting through my business Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works, as I have done for the past couple of decades, I direct the World Handwriting Contest (both endeavors are at http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com ), and (over half a lifetime ago) I remediated my own then-incompetent handwriting by a process somewhat similar to yours. (The biggest difference between what you did and what I did was that I also read through every book I could find on handwriting's history, back to the earliest published handwriting textbook [an italic manual published in Rome in 1522].

Ask me someday about the time (late 1996) that Martha Stewart tried to get me to lie to her readers about handwriting's history. (Stripped of details, the "Cliff's Notes" version is this: late in 1996 or 1997, I'd been interviewed by her top reporter for a story on handwriting and how to improve it, and had been specifically asked to address the history of the skill. The reporter later called me again and said that "Martha needs me to get you to change the history of handwriting for this article, so that she and her audience can better relate to it. The cursive we have today needs to be made to come chronologically first, with italic being its remote descendant. She doesn't like your having it the other way around — so, if you won't sign off on this rewritten version of your interview that she has prepared for your approval, ALL of your material will be cut from the story."
Key me know if you're interested in hoe I managed to ensure instead that the story WOULD go to print with my material preserved and handled accurately: which. I later learned from the same reporter, was the first time that any interviewee had EVER accomplished that when Ms. Stewart had decided that the facts on any matter "needed" to misrepresented because "that is what the public will 'relate' to: it fits what they already believe."

For the record: much italic (nowadays, and from the time of its origin) lacks even the small slant which italic usually has.

I agree that that kid has GOT to be in pain!
The WAY to change it is 1} use larger pencils - that way, students can't do that finger-squishy thing; and 2] equip the pencils with the molded plastic grips which encourage the fingers to go to a less-anatomically damaging positions. Then no one has to watch them to make sure they're doing it right, they just do.
technology good!

Just out of curiosity, how would you change the way the writing instrument is held? Not what would you change it to, but what would you do to change it?
Just wonderin'.

interesting.
My handwriting looks very like the italic shape, without the slant. I don't really remember learning to write [except for doing the Palmer method exercises], but I do remember thinking that I wanted my handwriting to look like THAT, with some of THIS, and these letters like this, and setting out to change my handwriting to look the way I wanted it to.
I have worked as a professional calligrapher [professional is when they pay you!], I have taught calligraphy, usually to students about 10 years old, and I fiddle around with the look of letters and forms all the time.
There is no single method by which every person learns a particular skill. The secret to learning is to find the method that works - I was particularly irritated with 2 of the sources, one which talked about "blue letters" and "red letters", and one which talked about "letter groups". Please, asked sarcastically, add another level of complexity to the subject!
If you're wondering if learning to write italic could be a path to having nice looking, readable, quick handwriting - sure, one of them.
What every teacher should wonder about is why the student wants to learn the subject - and if he doesn't want to, why not? Answer THAT question, and you're on the path.

N.B. I wrote you a whole 3 more paragraphs on a common-sense way to do prep for this, which I will send you if you'd like, but you may not need it. Out of curiosity, what IS your interest here?

For more on the matter (as an educational concern, of course, not as some newly proposed "right"), visit http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/201...
For the record, I find that at least one calligraphic style (italic) is far more likely than conventional cursive to lead to a handwriting which is easily read, easily written, and error-resistant. I'd value your comments on the matter, and you may value these sites addressing it: http://www.BFHhandwriting.com, http://www.handwritingsuccess.com, http://www.briem.net, http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com, http://www.italic-handwriting.org, http://www.studioarts.net/calligraphy/it...