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I feel as though this is a hard topic to know a right or wrong answer because a lot of it is based on opinion; however, studies have shown that there are numerous learning benefits to students being taught cursive and I believe it should be taught in schools.
- Ashton Bowler

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The Case for Cursive: 6 Reasons Why Cursive Handwriting is Good for Your Brain

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If you have kids or attend school yourself, you might have noticed that cursive handwriting-that loopy, continuous written style popular in the 20th century and recently cast aside in favor of keyboards-is making a comeback.

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is important for many reasons ...
1. Development of fine motor skill
2. Allows time for quiet meditation that typing electronically doesn't offer.
3. Bridges the gap to the past. The older generation did not live for electronics like today. A student can read grandpa's letters and old documents.
4. Writing helps the brain.

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Cursive is becoming more obsolete as time goes on due to new technologies arising. Cursive has just simply become out dated.
-Allison Hartley

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Considering the prevalence of typing, why waste time teaching children handwriting? Shutterstock

Many lament that the "good old days" when they were taught "the basics" at school have gone. When launching the National Curriculum in 2010, then-prime minister Kevin Rudd stated his objective was:

... without apology, to get back to the absolute basics on spelling, on sounding out letters, on counting, on adding up, on taking away. The basics that I was taught when I was at primary school a long time ago, and that's what our national curriculum is all about.

Many would include the teaching of handwriting on this list of "basics".

In the meantime, we have moved into the 21st century with new technologies permeating every aspect of our lives. No-one would think to ask the textile industry to go back to using the "Spinning Jenny", an antiquated machine that enabled the production of textiles, or decree that a laundry go back to washing clothes by hand. But they think it's okay to ask teachers to concentrate on industrial revolution "basics".

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There are obviously foundational skills and concepts that we all need to acquire. This includes knowing how our language works and the conventions of grammar and spelling, since these enable us to communicate more effectively.

But what of concerns about the poor handwriting skills of 21st-century students? English teacher Christopher Bantick, a self-confessed Luddite, wants computers and typing to be subjected to tests that will show that they improve learning - yet not the same for the pencil. He states:

I have just completed marking end-of-term secondary school exam papers. All were hand-written. The writing was somewhere between reasonable to poor. The reason? A lack of practice. Exams and handwritten answers are here to stay across Australia for the immediate future.

Why do students have to write answers with pens in exams? They are much faster at typing, so why are they not allowed to use their laptops in their final exams?

Most recently, the media reported a research project as having found that students who took notes by hand had better learning outcomes than those who took notes on a laptop. But when you actually go to the source of the study, the results indicate that learning outcomes were related to answering two different types of questions.

There were no differences in responses to factual questions (for example, "how long ago did the Inca civilisation exist?") between the two groups, but the handwritten note group did perform better on conceptual tasks ("In what ways do the Incas differ from the Mayans?"). The differences in performance were attributed to the type of notes taken.

Those typing took longer verbatim notes because they were fast and had time. Handwritten notes required more conceptual thinking because of the slowness of the process - the students had to be more selective in what they could write. You might think that the more detailed typewritten notes would enable the students to draw on more information to answer conceptual questions more effectively - but this did not happen. The study did not extend to discover why this might have occurred.

But short-term instruction on note-taking did not improve the performance of answering the conceptual questions for the typing group. Thus, it was the type of notes taken, not the medium, that was relevant. It leads us to think that effective instruction on note-taking and assessments that require short answers might have the potential to benefit typing computer users.

Criticisms of student handwriting centre on a perceived lack of ability to write legible cursive in test situations, as well as in everyday life. Yet when was the last time you wrote in cursive? While there is recognition that using a pencil or pen is a useful skill to have, spending school time on learning cursive, via careful copying of the letters and patterns, does not seem a particularly good use of school time.

Professor Amy Bastian from John Hopkins University, a motor neuroscientist, notes:

The more variety of things you do in the fine motor domain, the more variety of hand movements you make, will improve your dexterity.

But Bastian does not distinguish between writing in cursive or printing. Steve Graham, an education researcher from Arizona State University, takes it one step further and declares:

It really doesn't matter if it's manuscript or cursive.

So this is what it comes down to - a lack of practice, as Bantick stated. But not practice in using a pen or pencil. Some reports say students are not writing much in schools at all. They are filling in blanks on worksheets, one-sentence responses to set questions and only sometimes some short pieces summarising information.

21st-century learners need to have opportunities to write - to create narratives, with pens, pencils and keyboard. Not only will this give them the best chance of learning in different formats, it will enable them to become fluent in both. What they don't need is endless cursive practice on mindless sheets and being required to write in this mode for exams.

Further reading:
How much does handwriting matter? Handwriting's relevance in a digital world

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Teaching cursive handwriting is an outdated waste of time

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Many lament that the "good old days" when they were taught "the basics" at school have gone. When launching the National Curriculum in 2010, then-prime minister Kevin Rudd stated his objective was: ... without apology, to get back to the absolute basics on spelling, on sounding out letters, on counting, on adding up, on taking away.

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I think that cursive should not be taught anymore. I personally was never taught it in class because it wasn't my teachers favorite thing to go over. I think the wold today is moving in such a different direction that there is just no use for it today. - Madison Baxter

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Personally, I believe that cursive is unnecessary in school and in life right now. Everything in our world is going digital, therefore things are typed on the keyboard. Even people's signatures are typed on an iPad or keyboard and then pulled up in a cursive font. I think that if a parent would like their student to know how to do their name then they can teach them at home. As the attached source says, schools are teaching things in life that are essential and cursive is not essential anymore.
-Addison Solt

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Morgan Polikoff is an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education, where he researches the design and effects of standards, assessment and accountability policies.

Districts and states should not mandate the teaching of cursive. Cursive should be allowed to die. In fact, it's already dying, despite having been taught for decades. Very small proportions of adults use cursive for their day-to-day writing. Much of our communication is done on a keyboard, and the rest is done with print.

Educators and policymakers should resist the urge to add more skills to the Common Core because doing so undermines the strength of the standards.

Additionally, there is little compelling research to suggest the teaching of cursive positively affects other student skills enough to merit its teaching. While both research and common sense indicate students should be taught some form of penmanship, there is simply no need to teach students both print and cursive.

The Common Core standards are well constructed and full of the essential skills students need to succeed in reading and writing. The architects of the standards certainly weighed the inclusion of cursive and believed there was no need to include it. Thus, educators and policymakers should resist the urge to add more skills. Doing so would simply result in a crowded, less-focused curriculum, undermining the strength of the standards.

Given these realities, teachers would be better off focusing on the skills and knowledge that will impact student success in the future. These include printing and typing, but not cursive. As we have done with the abacus and the slide rule, it is time to retire the teaching of cursive. The writing is on the wall.

Join Opinion on Facebook and follow updates on twitter.com/roomfordebate.

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Morgan Polikoff is an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education, where he researches the design and effects of standards, assessment and accountability policies. Districts and states should not mandate the teaching of cursive. Cursive should be allowed to die.

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I think cursive should still be taught. I personally love writing in cursive and hope to teach it to students one day. Some of the benefits to learning cursive are:
- It contributes to brain development.
- Students are more likely to retain what they are writing,
- It helps students with fine motor skills.
*Melinda Major*

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According to the 41 states no longer require handwriting instruction. That's not surprising, since the Common Core has shifted the focus to skills which support technology, like keyboarding instruction. But the benefits of handwriting, and cursive in particular, have long been documented. In addition to the effects on brain development, handwriting helps students build fine motor skills and dexterity, and leads to greater engagement and retention. In addition, research shows that cursive writing is beneficial for students with learning disabilities.

Here are a few ways cursive instruction benefits students.

Brain development

According to a study conducted by the University of Washington, learning to print, write in cursive, and type on a keyboard all contribute to brain development in students. But instruction in cursive writing in particular seems to produce the greatest neurological effects.

The key difference is that cursive writing stimulates brain synapses and the synchronicity between both sides of the brain, unlike printing or typing. William Klemm , senior professor of neuroscience at Texas A&M University, states, "Handwriting (cursive writing) dynamically engages widespread areas of both cerebral hemispheres." He references brain scans taken during handwriting that show activation of extensive regions of the brain involved in thinking, language, and working memory.

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Handwriting expert Jeanette Farmer provides a strong argument for setting aside time for cursive instruction. "Handwriting has a physiological/psychological link in the brain," she states. "This link is so strong that nothing else done in the classroom can begin to compare with the powerful impact that repetitively manipulating the thumb and fingers over time has on the young brain."

Mental engagement

Handwriting contributes to greater retention and deeper learning in students. It only makes sense that students spend more time processing, and have a greater ability to remember, things they create by hand.

Learning how to write in cursive matters because it demands focused attention. First a child has to think about the structure of each letter, then figure out how to mechanically reproduce it. Repeating this active process over and over helps build a foundation of literacy learning.

This holds true for older students as well. According to researchers Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer , "Students who take notes on a laptop tend to transcribe lectures verbatim, while students who hand-write notes process information and reframe it in their own words, reinforcing learning."

Kinesthetic benefits

When students learn to write in cursive, they must coordinate fine motor skills with visual and tactile processing abilities. The physical act of touching pen to paper builds muscle memory that is foundational for learning. Writing in cursive requires knowledge of not just letter formation, but the curves and connections as well. This requires hand-eye coordination-a skill that is integral to learning to play a musical instrument, participate in sports, use tools, and even master a computer keyboard.

Benefits for students with learning disabilities

A 2012 review suggests that cursive may be particularly effective for individuals with neurological disorders such as dyslexia and dysgraphia. Dyslexia is caused by a disconnect between the auditory and language centers of the brain. As stated above, writing in cursive has the effect on the brain of joining together these two centers. In addition, cursive writing, with its connected letters and fluid motion, has been shown to help students with dysgraphia, which is characterized by motor control difficulties in writing.

We all know teachers only have so many hours in the day, and standards dictate other priorities. But the overwhelming evidence shows that cursive instruction has enormous benefits for our students. Setting aside a few minutes each week to teach cursive writing is something we need to invest in.
Do you make time for cursive instruction in your classroom? Come share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE! group on Facebook. Also, check out What Teachers Need to Know About Dysgraphia and 10 Things About Dyslexia Teachers Need to Know.

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All posts by Elizabeth Mulvahill, B.A. Liberal Arts, Certified Teacher

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Research Shows Huge Benefits to Learning Cursive, But Most States Don't Require It

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According to the USA Today, 41 states no longer require teaching handwriting. But there are big benefits to cursive instruction. See what they are.

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I think it should be taught. I believe that if it isn't it may prove to be one of those funny gaps in your knowledge as an adult (for example, I can't whistle and never bothered to learn how to spell long version of veggies the right way.) Concordia University--Portland has several reasons they think why it should be taught:
- It helps develop motor skills
- It reinforces learning
- It's used when working with legal documents
- Helps kids with disabilities
- It's a lost art form
- Connects students to the past
- Alicia Larsen

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Should cursive still be taught in school?