PA: Put Cursive Back Into Our Schools!

My three children attend James F. Baugher Elementary school in Milton, Pennsylvania, one of many Pennsylvania schools that has cut cursive writing from its curriculum, despite the importance of learning it. My children's teachers have expressed a desire to continue teaching it and a concern with the lack of writing skills in current average students. I am asking for it to be reinstated.

According to many educators, some benefits of learning cursive are improved hand-eye coordination, reinforced spelling retention, and reinforced writing skill. It can help develop spatial learning in a manner similar to drawing, activate creative benefits similar to drawing, and can help improve concentration.  Occupational therapist and expert in early childhood education Suzanne Baruch Asherson states in the New York Times, "..learning to write cursive is shown to improve brain development in the areas of thinking, language and working memory. Cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing."

Ms. Asherson also states that SAT essays written using cursive average higher scores than printed ones. Separate studies have shown cursive-written college notes are retained more effectively than recorded or typed notes.

School handwriting practice is imperative to mastery as kids spend more time on computer screens at home, and less time drawing and writing.

School handwriting is being squeezed out by test-geared, fill-in-the blank and multiple choice worksheets and computer time.

This is short-sighted. Well-educated people can print, write cursive, type, and use computers. Our children are not less capable, nor less in need of a diverse array of educational benefits.

Though many public schools have eliminated cursive handwriting from their curriculums, top-rated private and public schools across the U.S. and abroad still teach it. This leaves children in the districts which have dropped it at a disadvantage.

Please let the school board know all of our children deserve basic foundation skills like cursive to be taught in school.