What Students Lose With the Decline of Cursive Writing in Our School System

What+Students+Lose+With+the+Decline+of+Cursive+Writing+in++Our+School+System

By Emma Dowell, Reporter

Cursive writing has become a thing of the past in today’s time, but little do students know that this lack of knowledge they have on cursive will affect them tremendously in the future. Today, students are using computers and technology to substitute writing on paper. As a result, schools see no reason to teach students cursive writing. However, many students and parents say that cursive writing is indeed important and relevant and should not be so quickly dismissed. Developing an attractive cursive handwriting style is certainly pleasing to the eye, but it also has numerous mental, physical, social, and practical benefits. 

 

Believe it or not, cursive writing has a number of advantages that take an affect on the human body. For example, cursive develops motor skills for those who use it. According to, “Reasons Cursive Writing Should be Taught in School” states, “Cursive writing requires a very different skill set from print writing. It involves using the hand muscles in a different way. Additionally, it activates a different part of the brain than regular writing does. At the age cursive is taught, around 7 or 8 years old, these skills can be very beneficial in furthering motor skill development.” Given the information, this proves the argument that cursive should be taught in schools. To further explain, when students are given the task to learn cursive at a young age they build up skills that will only get stronger as they use them more. These skills will become useful for not only writing but also become beneficial for things like tying up shoelaces, fastening up seat belts, using cutlery, opening lunch boxes, and opening food bags. They may seem like small tasks but in the bigger picture it contributes tremendously. 

 

Cursive Writing is used as a pathway to guide students who may have some troubles with learning and writing as well. Cursive is a great tool in helping students who have disabilities. According to, “Reasons Cursive Writing Should be Taught in School” states, “Students with learning disabilities, specifically dyslexia, can have a very hard time with writing in print because many of the letters look similar, particularly b and d. Cursive letters, however, look very different from print letters. This gives dyslexic students another option — an option that can decrease their dyslexic tendencies and make them more confident in their abilities.” Using this information this gives the validation that cursive writing is not only used for cleanliness and looks, but for so many more reasons. Teachers need to realize that this could give relief to students with disabilities like dyslexia. As a result, this causes them to have confidence in themselves and make them realize that they are not so different from the rest of the students. 

 

When cursive was taught in schools in the past, teachers used it to connect to historical events. Given this,  many historical documents were written in cursive. Students need to be able to break down these documents to learn about the history of the time before us. According to,“Reasons Cursive Writing Should be Taught in School” states, “Not only will students miss out on a part of history, they may very well miss out on reading important letters and cards from their grandparents or great-grandparents, too. Older generations often still write in cursive on a daily basis, and kids often rely on their parents to translate these letters and cards for them because they simply cannot read the cursive writing. Forty years from now, when these grandparents have passed on, kids may want to look back on these letters, and they should be able to read them properly.” Without being able to read cursive, students will undoubtedly be kept from many opportunities to read important documents. In my personal experiences, my grandmother writes in cursive all of the time. As a sophomore in high school you would think I could read her writing. However that is not the case. This becomes a huge frustration because there is this huge divide that could’ve been avoided if schools were to teach cursive. 

 

To conclude, it has been made clear that cursive should in fact should be taught in schools due to numerous reasons regarding the mental, physical, social, and practical benefits. Though the world is becoming more and more technology dependent, there is something to be said about the need for educating students for the proper techniques and skills for cursive writing. As a result, cursive writing needs to be implemented into classrooms for the benefit of students and their education.