Lawmakers are trying to bring cursive writing back, but it’s not going to make much of a splash.
In his final days as Ohio governor, John Kasich approved House Bill 58. Part of the legislation details how the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) will create curriculum to encourage third grade students to start learning cursive writing and to have students be fully capable of it by fifth grade.
Plain City Elementary School Principal Kelly Hicks said the school hasn’t fully given up on cursive. However, she said the requirements for it have been waning since common core was established nearly a decade ago and removed cursive from the curriculum.
“We didn’t let it go entirely because we figured most manuscript and cursive handwriting were important for instruction for the elementary grades,” Hicks said.
Hicks said her school is known for teaching cursive in the past, but there is an increased interest in teaching typing. Still, she said both handwriting and device management are taught on equal levels.
“As more and more gets put on your plate, since now we have state technology standards that require keyboarding instruction, you have to let some things go,” Hicks said. “We don’t devote too much time to it but we still instruct on how to sign their names and recognize certain words in cursive.”
In the past, Plain City Elementary School has participated in the state and national Zaner-Bloser handwriting competition, with some students placing in the competitions.
However, the 2018 school year is the first year the school hasn’t participated, as elementary school students aren’t learning the Zaner-Bloser handwriting method anymore, and are instead learning Fundations.
Hicks said departing from the Zaner-Bloser method changes how students form their letters. She said this kind of decisions varies between schools, such as Monroe Elementary School adopting the Handwriting Without Tears program, which eliminates “curly-qs and loopty-loops.”
Though not having cursive has led to challenges in the classroom. She said sometimes teachers accidentally write their notes in cursive on the chalkboard. Hicks said these changes are part of a generational shift.
“It’s a tool that is taught as a communication tool,” Hicks said.
She said in the past, the school would grade handwriting and cursive, down to the spacing between the letters. Now, she said it’s all about whether the writing is legible.
Fairbanks Elementary School Principal Mark Lotycz echoed Hicks’ statement.
“I can see that penmanship is important, but the content of one’s writing is more important,” Lotycz said. “Making sure they understand and can communicate is equally or more important.”
Lotycz said learning cursive has its positives, such as improving motor skills and having the ability to sign checks. However, he said teaching cursive extensively is something of the past compared to what students need to learn now to compete in a fast-paced world.
He said he’s heard arguments in support of it, such as being able to read old documents written in cursive, but it’s not a selling point.
“It’s good for fine motor skills, but to learn it just to read cursive, I don’t see that as being a requirement (to teach),” Lotycz said.
Handwriting is still taught, but Lotycz said Fairbanks students are learning more about typing. He also said there’s some education on cursive writing, where students learn how to write and sign their names.
Lotycz said he’s seen cursive phased out of schools before, but Kasich bringing it back brought a change to that. He said even though it was removed from the standards, “we still taught a little bit of that, but greatly reduced.”
“We don’t rely on that because we have to move forward with what the state is testing us on,” Lotycz said.
Hicks said she thinks legislators are divided on the issue. She said she believes some want cursive writing back to improve motor skills while others want to phase it out to put more importance on typing skills.