The Writing on the Wall

Why is teaching cursive no longer a requirement in elementary schools? How will future generations read grandma’s letters or historical documents? Is it cursive’s fate to fade and die? Whether or not children should learn to write in cursive may not top the hot issues in children’s education; however, it holds greater importance than one may realize. In 2010, The Common Core State Standards removed the requirement for cursive instruction in the state curriculum. Since then, schools have focused more on technology and digital learning. However, what the states fail to recognize is that cursive writing has been an integral part of traditional curriculum with proven benefits to students. Learning cursive before manuscript provides children with cognitive, developmental, and practical advantages that manuscript does not. In today’s digital age, children write less and type more, and the art of putting pen to paper to express thoughts and ideas is disappearing as fast as ink dries on paper. Schools need to mandate teaching cursive writing and include it in the Common Core State Standards for the benefit of children’s success, not only in their elementary education, but in their studies and professional careers.

The history of cursive writing traces back as early as the Roman Empire. Carolingian was the style Charlemagne mandated for use throughout the Holy Roman Empire as well as the style monks used in the eighth century (Phelps 230). It was the foundation of cursive and dubbed “the earliest form of standardized cursive that others built upon” (The Twisted). Next, copperplate was the style most recognizable to the cursive taught in schools in the 1800s. This was the style that Thomas Jefferson used in his Declaration of Independence. Next, in the mid-1800s, Platt Rogers Spencer created the Spencerian method adopted in schools. However, as this method of writing required increased effort to make the more deliberate strokes, another method, the Palmer method, was created by Austin Palmer in 1890. Fewer flourishes made this less ornate style of cursive more practical and appealing for everyday use:

Research now shows that the most productive arm and hand movements, producing the least physiological and cognitive stress, have to come off the ball and socket joint of the shoulder with the full arm involved in the movements required for the final formation of all letters. The "inherent factors" [of the Palmer method] contribute to the completion of the motor patterns that eventually allow handwriting to become such a habitual skill, the mind is free to think while the arm and hand automatically produce the words the mind chooses. (Phelps 231)

Due to the Palmer style of writing, penmanship became more and more popular to the extent that “adults entering the business world got a leg up if they completed a course in a penmanship school” (The Twisted). Indeed, the ability to write in cursive distinguished the literate from the illiterate, the educated from the uneducated.

Then, in 1921, Margaret Wise brought manuscript to the United States from England (Wolfe). “Manuscript handwriting, also known as print script, consisted of simple and discrete letterforms that even very young children could master. Wise and pro-manuscript supporters advocated that this form of writing was easier for young children to master while learning how to read” (Wolfe). Ironically, in 1924, Wise “renounced manuscript handwriting” realizing that manuscript did not build a good foundation for cursive writing (Why Do). Wise realized that because each letter is separated by a space in manuscript, writers needed to pick up their pen every time they printed a letter. With cursive, on the other hand, each letter is connected and the pen only has to raise before each word. The fluidity of cursive makes cursive more logical for children learning to read and write as each word is its own unit. However, schools had already invested in teaching manuscript, buying materials and instructing teachers in the new writing form. By 1946, “66 percent of schools were instructing manuscript as an introductory method of handwriting before switching to cursive in Grade 3 or later” (Wolfe). In 2010, the Common Core State Standards stopped requiring public schools to teach cursive as part of their curriculum. Administrators believed that time spent learning technical skills, such as coding and keyboarding, would be more beneficial for students than learning cursive. 41 states adopted the Common Core State Standards (Povich). Since 2010, cursive writing has been sentenced to becoming a lost art form, or a thing of the past.

The “old core,” or “reading, writing and arithmetic” is as relevant and important today as ever (Blumenfield 1). Contrary to popular belief, learning cursive before manuscript is more beneficial for children than learning manuscript first. Children as young as four and five should learn to write in cursive before learning to read (Phelps 229). Cursive writing is often associated with smooth, fluid movements on the hand. Due to the continuous repeated movements, children learn and master cursive faster than manuscript. One study reported that “younger-aged children have higher irregularity and inconsistency of movement” (Semeraro). This irregularity and inconsistency make it harder for children to learn manuscript, in which they are constantly interrupting their writing to pick up their pen or pencil to write the next letter.

Samuel L. Blumenfeld in his work, “How Should We Teach Our Children to Write? Cursive First, Print Later!”, argues that children should be taught cursive first before ball-and-stick manuscript. More specifically, Blumenfield argues that learning cursive produces better handwriting as well as aids in learning to read and spell correctly. He writes, “Another aid to reading is that cursive requires children to write from left to right so that the letters will join with one another in proper sequence. The blending of the sounds is made more apparent by the joining of the letters. In ball-and-stick, some children write the letters backwards, and often the spacing is so erratic that you can’t tell where one word ends and another begins. Cursive teaches spatial discipline” (Blumenfield 2). In this passage, Blumenfield suggests that learning cursive before manuscript aids children in their reading endeavors as cursive helps blend the letters together to form words in a way that manuscript cannot do (Blumenfield 6).

Another point Blumenfield raises is that cursive aids left handed writers. Blumenfield notes that lefties make up a non-negligible percentage of the population. It is important to consider the effect manuscript has on left-handed writers’ writing. In the context of having legible handwriting, cursive has implications for assisting struggling lefties to write. For example, as Blumenfield states, "When left-handed children are taught ball-and-stick first, their tendency is to use the hook position in writing since the stylus is held straight up and the paper is also positioned straight." If this is the case, then the child’s hand covers what he is writing as he writes from left to right. Therefore, a more nuanced perspective on teaching cursive writing before manuscript might include consideration of the lefties in the world.

In addition to enhancing left-handed writer’s penmanship, Suzanne Baruch Asherson, an occupational therapist, points out that cursive enhances memory and brain development. Writing in cursive “stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing” (Beyond Writing). This is another reason children should and can learn cursive before manuscript. Additionally, and quite interestingly, The College Board noticed a trend in students who wrote their Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) essays in cursive rather than in manuscript. Asherson notes that those who wrote in cursive scored slightly higher on the SAT than those who did not. Experts speculated that writing in cursive helped the students focus on the “content of their essays” during the SAT with fewer interruptions and breaks in thought (Beyond Writing). When taking a timed standardized test, cursive writing offers fluidity, legibility and speed that benefits students.

Multiple scientific studies show the benefits of cursive writing. One particular study was conducted using a HD EEG, or an high-density electroencephalogram, at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The study tested the brain electrical activity of twelve young adults and twelve 12-year-old children “as they were writing in cursive by hand, typewriting, or drawing visually presented words that were varying in difficulty” (Bergland). The study found that even in a digital age, “old-fashioned” cursive writing has innumerable benefits especially when it comes to cognitive learning and memory. When writing, the EEG showed more synchronized electrical activity, displayed by the neuronal oscillation patterns in the parietal and central regions of the brain, the parts of the brain associated with memory and the learning of information (Bergland). However, when typing on a keyboard, the electrical activity was desynchronized in the parietal and central regions of the brain. The study concluded “that children, from an early age, must be exposed to handwriting and drawing activities in school to establish the neuronal oscillation patterns that are beneficial for learning” (Ose). It was also noted that the data from the experiment enhances the point that writing in cursive is essential for the “early recruitment in letter processing of brain regions known to underlie successful reading. Handwriting, therefore, may facilitate reading acquisition in young children” (Bergland). In the conclusion of the experiment’s report, the conductors of the study warned that with the increase of digital technology, the ability to write by hand may one day be lost. In order to prevent this, Audrey van der Meer, a neuropsychology professor at NTNU, as well as her colleagues are “advocating for policymakers to implement guidelines that ensure school-age children receive a minimum of handwriting training…” (Bergland). Meer recognizes that schools need to start reincorporating cursive writing back into their curriculum, or writing by hand may one day be gone forever.

Another study using MRI neuroimaging was conducted to study the effectiveness of cursive writing on the brain development of children (Bergland).The researchers found that handwriting “activates a unique ‘reading circuit’ in the brain” (Bergland). The data strongly suggests that learning to write in general directly impacts one’s ability to read as handwriting, but cursive handwriting even more so, enhances the “early recruitment in letter processing of brain regions known to underlie successful reading” (Bergland). Thus, handwriting is directly correlated to one’s reading comprehension as well as literacy.

Now the question arises, even with all of the supportive research that exists on the benefits of handwriting, why do the Common Core State Standards not mandate the teaching of cursive writing in schools? One may argue that cursive should be left to die as the Common Core State Standards no longer include it in the curriculum. If the state does not think cursive important enough to teach it in schools, why bother? What those who follow this train of thought argue is that the Common Core State Standards “only include those skills that are testable and measurable in the classroom; they don’t address basic foundation skills, like handwriting or even spelling” (Asherson). Thus, because handwriting is subjective, they argue that it is not testable. There are no tests that students can be graded on regarding their handwriting. How can children enhance their writing abilities if they have poor handwriting or lack the handwriting skills to make their point? It should be obvious that being able to physically write well directly coincides with expressing one’s thoughts on paper. Regardless of whether or not students can be formally tested on their handwriting, they should be given the opportunity to learn and use the skill. Being able to think critically and express one’s thoughts through writing are skills that will never go out of practice. Cursive, because of the fluidity it offers, is the best device to aid in critical, logical thinking. One may also argue that one can get his thoughts down on a computer just as well as on paper. As studies have shown, the parts of the brain responsible for learning and memory are not as stimulated when typing on a computer as they are when writing with pen and paper.

Another aspect of cursive is that it can be used as a type of therapy. Those with learning disorders especially benefit from cursive. Students with dyslexia, a learning disorder that impairs one’s ability to read, have many challenges when it comes to reading “because their brains associate sounds and letter combinations inefficiently” (Jones). Cursive offers continuous movement from left-to-right meaning that writing letters in reverse is less common. In Blumenfield’s article “How Should We Teach Our Children to Write? Cursive First, Print Later!”, he explains that:

[O]ne of the biggest problems children have when learning to read primary-school print and write in ball-and-stick is that so many letters look alike - such as b’s and d’s; f’s and t‘s; g’s, q’s, and p’s - that children become confused and make many unnecessary reading errors. In cursive, however, there is a big difference between a b and. a d. In cursive writing, a b starts like an l while a d begins like writing the letter a. In other words, in cursive, children do not confuse b’s and d’s, because the movements of the hand make it impossible to confuse the two letters. And this knowledge acquired by the hand is transferred to the reading process. Thus, learning to write cursive helps learning to read print. (Blumenfield 2)

Cursive is often used in dyslexia therapy. Marilyn Zecher, a former teacher and language specialist at the Atlantic Seaboard Dyslexia Education Center, argues that cursive should be implemented in the Common Core State Standards. Cursive writing is indeed in line with the Standards because it “helps facilitate deeper and more critical thinking” (Jones). If schools were required to teach cursive, this would aid struggling students with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, to navigate their studies better, as learning cursive would be therapeutic for them.

One final point to address is the fact that U.S history is replete with documents written in cursive. The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights were written in cursive as were numerous literary works and documents. Without the ability to read cursive writing, students cannot access original documents. Ignorance of cursive can lead to ignorance of history as well.

Not all hope is lost, however, when it comes to the Common Core State Standards cutting out cursive writing. Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Idaho, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Kansas still teach cursive in the public schools and have even called for cursive to become a part of the Common Core again. However, parents of students in other states will have to be more intentional about teaching their children cursive, whether that be teaching it themselves or sending their children to private schools that teach cursive (Jones).

Overall, many scientific studies and research support the claim that learning cursive before manuscript provides children with cognitive, developmental, and practical advantages that manuscript cannot provide. There is physical data that writing, notably in cursive, stimulates the part of the brain that deals with one’s memory and learning capabilities. In a digital world where technology is evolving faster than ever, it is easy to become caught up in the digitality of the world. However, the ability not only to write, but to write well and to think critically, is something that the digital world will never be able to replace. If teaching cursive does not become mandated in the schooling of children, future generations will lose the ability to write. A call to action needs to arise that puts writing at the forefront of children’s education. Cursive represents a critical foundation of education and needs to be included in the Common Core State Standards. Cursive should not be on the proverbial wall but it should be in our country’s classrooms.