Can your kids write cursive? How Modesto Schools is bringing back the classic writing style

Before smartphone keyboards, before laptops, PCs and typewriters, before the printing press, there was cursive handwriting. But for many members of generations growing up with electronic devices, cursive might as well be hieroglyphics.

Look back more than a decade and cursive writing was taught in U.S. elementary schools along with multiplication, spelling and other subjects. Many current students, however, cannot read or write in cursive, so the state of California stepped in to counter this dying art.

In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring cursive handwriting instruction mandatory in first through sixth grades effective Jan. 1. Modesto City Schools is preparing instruction for this school year.

Cursive writing faded out when states adopted the “Common Core State Standard”, also known as the CCSS, rolled out in 2010. The goal for common core was to make K-12 education more cohesive throughout the states. With over 40 states adopting the standard, common core focused on keyboarding and typing skills to adapt to technology.

For example, the common core standard for third-grade students was to “use technology to produce and publish writing (using keyboarding skills) as well as to interact and collaborate with others.”

California is one of many states bringing back cursive writing in the classroom. As of this year, over 20 states now require cursive writing curriculum.

Modesto City Schools Superintendent Sara Noguchi said one big reason students should know cursive is to more easily read primary sources and historical documents that were written that way.

Additionally, “studies have shown that students benefit from cursive handwriting as it enhances their brain development while also improving their fine motor skills,” Noguchi said. “Studies have also shown that students who write in cursive have different electrical activity activated in the brain as compared to typing.”

A study by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found cursive handwriting helps the brain learn and remember better, according to an article by Psychology Today. Their data found cursive handwriting prepared the brain for learning more than typewriting.

Andrea Pegarella, an English teacher at Modesto High School, believes one reason cursive writing was not being taught often in schools was a time constraint: Teachers already struggled to fit in all the curriculum they are required to teach.

“I think a lot of the teachers really would like to still teach cursive because I do think that they value it as a skill and I think they value the fact that it’s useful,” she said. “It sparks creativity. It uses more than one hemisphere of the brain and makes kids think outside of the box.”