I emailed a friend of mine this morning about paleography, and she reminded me (not very gently either) that this is a VERY useful skill especially with family history research. I paused, considering the old cramped, handwritten documents that I've looked at for my family history research. Her point was definitely relevant.
How many times have I confused an "f" with a long "s"? Probably more than one time. The National Archives offers great resources for recognizing handwriting from 1500-1800. This site even features several different practice activities! The study of paleography isn't limited to English letters or handwriting. There are also resources available in Spanish. The Spanish Paleography Tool allows users to interact with old Spanish documents, and provides a transcription and alphabet key for these ecersises.
I've actually discovered that this is more interesting than I initially thought.