Posted on 03/19/2026 9:24:14 AM PDT by algore
Cursive has been on the upswing for years now. More than two dozen states now require cursive instruction in schools after the 2010 Common Core standards omitted the skill.
Kenerson, a multilingual teacher at Holmes, started the middle school cursive club when students couldn't read her writing on the board. They just stared at her blankly, she said.
"I realized they didn't know how to write or read in cursive," Kenerson said. For an educator who firmly believes that quotes deserve to be written in cursive, and has a new one on her board each month, Kenerson wanted to give students a chance to understand the magic of the loopy writing.
Kenerson's after-school club is a local example of a nationwide trend — cursive handwriting is back in many classrooms across the country. Teachers and legislators credit the resurgence to nostalgia and some evidence of educational benefits. But surprisingly, the curves and swoops are contentious among experts, and some argue that cursive does not add any real value for students
Much of the cursive debate centers around time in the classroom. Should educators spend precious minutes teaching another way to write on paper when technology is so prevalent?
"I have seen no evidence that cursive brings any particular cognitive or learning benefit beyond that brought by hand printing," wrote Mark Warschauer, a professor of education at the University of California, Irvine
Warschauer, who founded the UC Irvine Digital Learning Lab, opposes teaching cursive in schools because of the "waste of time and effort" when print handwriting, voice-to-text applications, and keyboards are easily accessible to students.
Back in Kenerson's cursive club, 11-year-old Conrad Thompson said she's the only student in her history class who can read her teacher's huge Declaration of Independence printout. It makes her proud.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
It should be optional at most.
Many of us cannot write legibly.
Tortured semi-printing is as close as I can get.
Even writing a check requires great focus and a large flat surface.
Ever notice. Education “reform” always seems to be about what *not* to teach.
And it has been so all my life.
However, I went on to become a technology project manager on very large mergers in the billions of dollars.
Aerojet acquisition of Rocketdyne
Intel acquisition of Altera
To name just two.
I failed handwriting at every grade level.
Children were never taught how to print (the way typewriters do) until the invention of the typewriter. Cursive is ergonomically correct and comfortable. Printing works against how the body and brain work together. Not that the education establishment has ever paid any attention to what is appropriate learning for children.
My handwriting has always been abysmal but I CAN write in cursive if necessary.
I’d give myself a grade of about a C-
I’ll give you an example:
It’s so bad, I once had a travelers check rejected while trying to settle an onboard cruise ship bill because the counter signature didn’t match the original! Lol!
My wife says I must have been a medical doctor in a previous life. 😁
As I used to tell my students studying architecture...
“When in love, write. When in college, type.”
our founding documents were written in cursive... therefore, cursive defines who we are.
NPR: “It is illegal to teach slaves to read or write. Or at least it was, back in the good old days.”
I learned cursive in school.
However, as I got not much older, my cursive skills declined. This was despite my increasing skills and knowledge in most other areas. So I reverted to taking notes via printing, and of course using computers to write most texts.
Only my signature was in cursive, but that gradually declined into a scrawl.
I don’t know if it is useful to teach cursive in the computer age, when many people even take notes with a computer.
My wife’s handwriting is every bit as bad as mine maybe worse. I tell her that’s why I married her!
” therefore, cursive defines who we are.”
BS
They didn’t have typewriters or computers.
It no more defines who we are than the man in the moon.
My handwriting is bad in cursive or long hand. Don’t make no difference to me.
“”””Ever notice. Education “reform” always seems to be about what *not* to teach.””””
Nice observation.
"Common Core" was an intentional program to dumb down generations of students...and it succeeded.
As a 5th grader, I received As in penmanship...and now my signature to sign for FedEx/UPS deliveries looks like chicken-scratching.
Yes! So they can read the Constitution and all the other documents that keeps them free!
it defines us as americans. all should be able to read them in the original texts.
americans are americans because of what is written there, if people cannot read it, it will be taken away.
“americans are americans because of what is written there”
Correct, but it would be no less profound if created on a printing press of the day.
It does not have additional value because it’s in cursive.
Cursive for discipline? That’s funny.
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