Perhaps the trick is that Italian doesn't have such a fucked up spelling so that kids don't have to waste so much time wrapping their heads around what's this "writing" stuff all about.
Sorta like teaching and encouraging Pig Latin.
Growing up in US public schools cursive was mandatory in ~5th grade in my district. Then shortly after (6th grade? 7th?) it became optional and the vast majority of my peers quit writing it
I persisted because I actually preferred it, only to be actively encouraged by teachers collecting longer written assignments to write _normally_ on account of my cursive being harder to read
It didn't end up mattering - computers and printed assignments were rapidly becoming the norm. I always thought teaching cursive was a strange choice
It may be worth noting that the legibility of my penmanship is generally poor. I wonder if perhaps emphasizing legibility has similar positive effects on developing brains...