Posted on 03/09/2026 6:28:07 PM PDT by big truck
PENNSYLVANIA - Starting next month, all public and private schools in Pennsylvania will be required to reintroduce cursive handwriting into their curriculum.
(Excerpt) Read more at fox29.com ...
You went to Catholic school too, I see (grin)!
#24 (She also instructed us on how to hold a book for reading and other stuff.)
Like Holly Hunter in Star Trek: Academy?
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In elementary school we would do a line of each letter in the alphabet: one in cursive and the other block print. It’s a great way to learn and practice basic communication skills. My cursive wasn’t the best, but it was legible.
I am a writer and I still jot my outlines and notes in a notebook in cursive. I love it, not only because I grew up with it, but because I think it’s an art form. I think better when I write in cursive.
This is good. So much of our past history is in a written form, cursive.
With writing print style, it took extra work to pick up the pen or pencil for each letter, make sure every letter was spaced properly, etc. where writing cursive, I didn't need to do this -- one letter would flow into the next.
Maybe strange to many, but that's my take on it.
Your struggles with handwriting made me think back to my own struggles.
I was pretty much a reader when I entered the first grade which in the rural school that I attended put me way ahead of everyone else.
But although I could read, I couldn’t tie my shoes as I had issues with left and right.
Back in the day, parents didn’t want their kids to be left-handed.
Later in life I jokingly accused my parents without evidence of slapping my hand when I did things as a toddler with my left hand.
Even today I write with my right hand and I use my left hand for a computer mouse.
My hand eye was very good to write although I wasn’t fully writing cursive in the first grade as I remember I could sign my name in cursive.
But when recess in the gym came around I couldn’t tie my shoes even in the second grade.
I’m sure the other kids made fun of me behind my back but not to my face.
I was one of the biggest kids in my class and such a confrontation might have caused them some pain as kids in those days routinely exchanged pushes, shoves, and punches.
It was a good and humbling lesson learned early.
I never felt “superior” because I could read and I never felt “stupid” because I couldn’t tie my shoes.
I learned early on that everyone has a different set of strengths and weaknesses.
For the record sometime in the second grade I kinda figured out how to tie my shoes.
It takes longer and the process looks awkward, but when I’m through my tied shoes look like everybody else’s.
I still tie my shoes every morning the same way.
I have always thought that being left-handed must have been a curse for some people. And the the Italian word for “Left” is “Sinistra”, so the Italians viewed it as some kind of liability. Or people who didn’t speak Italian did!
Funny. I got bullied a good bit as a kid, and while I was bigger than some, and very strong, I was clumsy and slow. But I learned a lot from being bullied that stays with me today, and one of them is that humility you mentioned, so that I avoided picking on others and my inclination to stick up for someone being picked on.
I didn’t like it, and eventually learned to stick up for myself, but I wouldn’t trade that experience of being bullied. It was valuable.
That’s called “mirror writing.” Look it up. My mother, who was also ambidextrous, could do cursive writing as fast backwards as she wrote forwards. And, when you held it up to a mirror, it looked exactly the same. Her grandfather had the same skill. He would send her letters written backward. She would hold them up to a mirror to read them. You have a special brain!
I learned cursive writing in fifth grade. I can still hear my old, battle axe of a teacher instructing us. We would follow her on our lined, yellow paper as she drew a circle repeatedly on the blackboard—”1, 2, 3, 4, capital M”, she would intone. I loved cursive writing and I won awards for penmanship in elementary school.
Some of the kids’ parents weren’t so sure. One at a PTA meeting asked why their children were learning “cursed” writing.
Same here.
As practice, near the end of the year, Granny Wildcat made us take down in cursive, in ink, her dictation. She dictated the local history. She thus killed several birds with one stone.
Recently while researching some local history in the 1770’s I found what amounts to my first paper written 70 years ago, at 11 years old, as a fifth grade writing in cursive assignment.
For the record, my hand writing is and always has been poor but my single stroke commercial lettering is near perfect
When did schools stop teaching cursive?
Same, for me!
Exactly as you described.
My gramp taught me cursive (I was home schooled) and my penmanship is awesome as some folks say - well at least those that can read cursive. LOL
Oh how I remember those old Palmer Method books with the perfect script we tried so hard to emulate.
My dad had the most beautiful handwriting.
Mine used to be good, but now is pathetic. Too many decades of production typing / word processing.
Ha! Thanks for saying I have a special brain. That’s the nicest thing anyone has said about me in quite a while.
I used to be much faster at it, but still can do the backwards writing fairly fluidly. I like cursive writing. and try to write very neatly for greeting cards, checks, etc.
I do think it is important to teach cursive to children, as it is a mode of personal expression you cannot achieve on a keyboard. Probably a lame reason, but it’s mine. :)
Lefthanders (like me) all seem to have the knack to do this.
Leonardo wrote all his notes in mirror script to keep them secret.
I used to be able to do that. I haven’t written backwards in years. I only did it for my entertainment.
I have good handwriting if I buckle down and concentrate. (And of course wearing bifocals.)
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