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 ...
I was taught the Palmer method by nuns. Talk about discipline!
A long time ago my grandmother told me that in her day grammar schoolers were taught to write right-handed whether or not they were righties! That’s discipline. She was left-handed.
Curiously, if you write your cursive signature, on a check, using just your hand and fingers, it comes out exactly as it would if you were to write it on a chalkboard, using a completely different set of muscles (arm, wrist, elbow, shoulder).
They should teach capitalization as well.
Learning cursive takes away valuable time that could be devoted to critical race theory.
Looks like NONE of the children are holding the pencil right. Holding with the thumb pad, not in the thumb/palm crotch, gives greater control for good penmanship.
I block print..
I can write cursive, average to slightly above average for a guy, I guess.
The only thing that looks good in cursive from me is my signature itself, since I’ve had to sign so many darn documents.
Probably signed that more times than anything else in my life, so plenty of practice.
no, but wecannot change the fact that it IS in cursive.
hehehe. touche.
ee cummings is my favorite poet.
Of course.
Even copperplate!
Brain development is best achieved by 3 dimensional work.
Who was that woman?
Rachel Jeantel, a witness in the George Zimmerman trial. Said on the witness stand she doesn’t read cursive.
Yes I recall now.
You should teach him how to crank start a Model T, a skill he's just as likely to need to know in life as cursive and driving a stick.
What about typing? Dictating is where it’s at now. Heck you don’t even need to know how to spell!
No wonder the state of education in this country is in such a bad way when idiots like this are teaching the teachers.
I liked using a slide rule because it gave me a visual idea of the relationship of the functions and numbers. I understood the ideas of e and logs and the trig functions, but they were all laid out for me to see on a slide rule.
I like cursive, but I can’t say my cursive is beautiful, or even legible, at times. My signature is pretty difficult to forge, however.
in the early 70s my school banned calculators because some people might not be able to afford them and thus become disenfranchised.
I brought in a paper slide rule and once they figured out I was using it, they banned that to. I don’t remember why but I know my brain rejected their lame argument which is why I can’t remember.
I still have some very nice inherited slide rules, but no one cares to buy them.
maybe after there is Global or even regional EMP someone will remember how we used to use them
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