Today’s students can write a short story with their thumbs in just a few minutes, thanks to their obsession with smartphones, but can they write in a flowing script?
“In our digital world, cursive has fallen by the wayside, but there are many reasons for students to get a basic grasp on cursive writing,” said Rep. Dane Watro (R), who sponsored the bill.
Cursive has been out of vogue for 15 years, after schools began adopting a Common Core curriculum, which de-emphasized the writing style. Pennsylvania is the latest state to move to make it part of the early education process once again. Two dozen states have done so previously.
(California mandated cursive writing education in schools last year.)
There’s also an argument that notes taken in cursive can be better retained and comprehended by the writer, since it’s a smoother, uninterrupted process.
Representative Watro points to another advantage of learning to read and write cursive: understanding history. Countless documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, were originally written in cursive.
