cursive

The slow demise of cursive handwriting is not a new story, but lately the death knell has been tolling a little louder. In a recent example, the State Board of Education of Kansas is about to debate the role of cursive lessons in the schools amid a nationwide decline in those lessons.

School districts large and small have been phasing out cursive. Verona, Wis., will phase out most third-grade cursive instruction by 2014. Indiana formally de-emphasized cursive last year in favor of pushing proficiency in keyboard use.

Common Core State Standards for what students are expected to learn have been picked up by most of the states in the union. Those standards don't require cursive. Keyboarding skills, however, are featured in the writing standards. That means most states no longer have a mandate for teaching cursive.… Read more