ABSTRACT
Handwriting is an acquired skill and clearly one that is a complex perceptual-motor task, sometimes referred to as a neuromuscular task. With respect to handwriting and pedagogy, Herrick and Okada suggested the various directions that research, respecting the teaching of handwriting, might pursue in the 1960s. Egyptian writing developed three different styles of symbol systems— hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic, each using the same combination of characters but in a different written form. The introduction of the reed pen and papyrus around 2000 BC encouraged the development of hieratic writing that employed simpler forms to depict the same figures. The Phoenicians, the merchants of the Mediterranean from 1200 to 900 BC, are credited with the spread of the first alphabetic system through their travels from Palestine to Gibraltar. The Greeks derived and developed their own alphabet from the Phoenician system, introducing vowels to accommodate the Greek language.
