Cursive comeback? Why it’s not taught in all CO schools, and why teaching it may be vital

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- If cursive writing is a lost art, Debbie Younger may be the modern-day “Indiana Jones" of penmanship.

The Fountain grandmother is on a new crusade to bring back cursive writing after learning her granddaughter, a sixth-grader at Fountain Middle School, doesn’t know how to read or write in cursive.

"I was astonished,” said Younger. “I learned it in fourth grade. Isn't it a fundamental that you need?”

Younger’s granddaughter, Taija, had a school project assigned to her in which she had to learn a family tradition. She chose grandma’s cake recipe.

Only she was unable to actually read the recipe.

“So she gives me the index card and I look at it and I realize, 'This is in cursive and I don't know how to read cursive,’” said Taija.

Younger was stunned.

"You can't read cursive and you're in sixth grade and go to middle school?" she asked. "When you buy a house or a car you have to sign your name."

"Old stories, or old recipes, or old letters, maybe love letters that were handed down. They need to know how to read cursive."

KRDO news anchor Josh Helmuth reached out to the Fountain-Fort Carson School District to see why they don’t teach cursive writing. They sent the following statement, saying:

“Cursive is not required in the Colorado Academic Standards and many states across the country have also removed cursive instruction from their curriculum. Therefore, elementary school students in the district are not explicitly taught to write using cursive handwriting. However, students are still taught to print early in their education. The declining emphasis on cursive writing instruction or demand that students use it has been attributed to the increasing use of technology, and the growing need of class time being spent to ensure students master required state standards. The growing use of technology in our classrooms has given students the opportunity to share their writing with larger or more diverse audiences, increased student collaboration and engagement, and allows students the opportunity to incorporate visuals and multimedia into their writing."

And Fountain-Fort Carson D-8 isn’t atypical.

In fact, KRDO checked in with nine major school districts in the region. Only three said that cursive writing was a required part of their curriculum. Three other districts said it depends on the individual school. And three more said they don’t teach cursive writing at all; however, D-70 in Pueblo said they’re discussing bringing it back.

Before 2009, most kids were taught cursive writing in the third grade. However, it was 2009 when the Common Core State Standards Initiative was launched; it didn’t require, or even suggest for that matter, teaching cursive.

The Vanguard School is a top-rated K-12 public charter school in Colorado Springs. They feel the Common Core may be leaving kids shorthanded.

"When you see the work our Kindergartners are producing right now, it's among the best cursive in our school,” said Colin Mullaney, executive director of The Vanguard School.

Mullaney’s school, which teaches a classical liberal arts curriculum, starts teaching cursive writing in Kindergarten and students are required to continue writing in cursive up through graduation.

"Students are learning to write in cursive at the same time they're learning to read and it tends to help students see words as units, blocks of letters that have a beginning and end,” said Mullaney.

"We get a lot of feedback every year around this time with how amazed parents are that their child can write in this beautiful cursive,” he said.

"The students are learning attention to detail. They're learning focus. They're learning that it takes practice."

And Vanguard may be on to something.

"Cursive uniquely contributes in ways other modes of letter production don't,” said Virginia Berninger.

Berninger is a recently retired professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington. She conducted a five-year study released in 2015 looking at how a child’s brain develops while learning cursive writing. While there are benefits in brain development while learning cursive, manuscript, or typing, she found that cursive writing helps development in ways the other methods do not.

"What we discovered was that cursive uniquely contributed to spelling... over and beyond what those other modes of letter production contributed,” said Berninger.

"Cursive letters have connecting strokes that link each letter in a word so that helps the students to link the letters to a specific word spelling,” she said.

It’s because of such findings that at least 25 states now require cursive writing be taught in public classrooms, according to The Handwriting Collaborative.

Cursive writing doesn’t just improve brain development, but also:

We reached out to the Colorado Department of Education and Colorado Education Association. Both said they leave the decision to teach cursive to each individual school.

"The Colorado Education Association does not have a statewide stance on the teaching of cursive in Colorado schools. We view this as a local control issue. When making decisions like these, we do hope and encourage, local districts to follow the science, follow best practices and listen to educators’ professional expertise on these matters.” – Amie Baca-Oehlert, high school counselor and president of the Colorado Education Association.

“Colorado's standards in reading, writing, and communicating have never included expectations for handwriting or cursive.  In Colorado, when and how handwriting or cursive is taught has always been a local decision. Not sure if there have been any attempts to legislate cursive. If so, that legislation has never been successful in Colorado.” – spokesperson, Colorado Department of Education.

Meanwhile, we decided to hold a short social experiment in downtown Colorado Springs, asking random strangers to write on a dry erase board, putting their cursive skills to the test. Of that random sampling: 64% knew cursive well enough to write legibly while 36% did not.

As for Younger’s granddaughter?

“My next [step] might be writing a letter to Governor [Jared] Polis and see if we can get it mandated that they must [learn],” said Younger.

Would you like to teach your child cursive writing outside of school? Slingerland.org  is an online handwriting instruction program that specializes in cursive.