Palmer Method Palmer Method The Palmer Method of penmanship instruction was developed and promoted by Austin Palmer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was largely created as a simplified style of the "Spencerian Method", which had been the major standardized system of handwriting since the 1840s. The Palmer Method soon became the most popular handwriting system in the United States. Under the method, students were taught to adopt a uniform system of cursive writing with rhythmic motions. The method developed around 1888 and was introduced in the book "Palmer's Guide to Business Writing" (1894). Palmer's method involved "muscle motion"
Palmer Method the writer to effectively compete with the typewriter. To educators, the method's advocates emphasized regimentation, and that the method would thus be useful in schools to increase discipline and character, and could even reform delinquents. The Palmer Method began to fall out of popularity in the 1950s and was eventually supplanted by the Zaner-Bloser method, which sought to teach children manuscript before teaching them cursive, in order to provide them with a means of written expression as soon as possible, and thus develop writing skills. The D'Nealian method, introduced in 1978, sought to address problems raised by the Zaner-Bloser method,