Why Cursive?
Rebuilding education by returning to beauty in penmanship
Writing is almost as important as speaking, as a medium for communicating thought. For this reason it is said that ‘Writing is a secondary power of speech, and they who cannot write are in part dumb.’ Scrawls that cannot be read may be compared to talking that cannot be understood; and writing difficult to decipher, to stammering speech.
Theory directs, and Art performs, therefore inform the mind and train the hand. If you would attain high excellence in Penmanship, you must master the principles, and faithfully practice them. - Theory of Spencerian Penmanship
Back in the day, when I was homeschooling my kids, I added cursive to the repertoire for the typical reasons: “It's a good skill to have under their belts.” “They should be able to read historical documents and their grandmother's biscuit recipe.” “I learned cursive. They should learn cursive…Everybody should learn cursive.” Essentially, I was checking a box. So, I threw a cursive tracing book at them. They finished it. I was satisfied. Meanwhile, they and I continued to mostly write in print. We could read and write in cursive if we needed to, but like most of us, we rarely used it.
It wasn’t until last year when I taught second and third grade at Ancient Paths Christian and Classical Academy that my curiosity and interest in cursive piqued. For the first half of the school year the class wrote in print, while I slowly introduced them to cursive. As the second semester began, we switched over to the exclusive use of cursive. I discovered as I taught it and honed the skill myself, that my cursive was much better than my print. I have actually heard a lot of people say that. As I demonstrated it to my class, it began to click for me. And, I was astonished to see it “click” with my students as well, particularly with one student who had thus far been struggling with penmanship, spelling, and reading fluency.
Because cursive uses a similar starting place for each letter, it reduces kids’ tendency to reverse or mix up the letters. Right off the bat, I observed how cursive helped with the issue of mixing up b’s and d’s, p’s and q’s. Because cursive requires the pencil to lift from the paper fewer times, uses fewer shapes than print, and begins mostly on the base-line, I observed an ease and delight in my students, where as before, there had been confusion and frustration. Writing in cursive brought with it a sense of accomplishment, discipline, accuracy and beauty. What was curious to me, was not just that cursive seemed to have a positive impact on every student, but that the students that had been struggling the most with penmanship had the biggest improvement. Surprisingly, not only did these students improve in their penmanship but also their spelling and reading fluency. Why would that be?
One afternoon I sat down and went down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of Google searches to see if I could find out. As I started reading through multiple studies and articles, I learned that there was a lot of interest in the subject. There are schools for dyslexic students which use cursive exclusively.1 Many countries including France and England never switched to print and still teach cursive first. Universities are publishing articles encouraging their students to take lecture notes in cursive.2 Homeschool curriculum companies are selling “cursive first” curricula, Montessori schools boast that they use cursive to teach students their letters3, many U.S. states are putting cursive back into their curriculum.4 All of this seems to be based on the undeniable, beneficial effects of cursive.
Researchers have credited learning how to write in cursive with an array of benefits for young students—from building fine motor skills to stimulating and creating synergies between different hemispheres of the brain involved in thinking, language, and working memory. These evidence-based benefits of learning how to write in cursive are powerful.5 - Elizabeth Heubeck, Education Weekly-
Writing is a powerful tool for learning how to read. At Ancient Paths, our orthography curriculum, Romalda Spalding’s The Writing Road to Reading, is built on this principal. But as I learned while researching, cursive is the best tool to get the full benefits of this approach. Because each word is written as a unit, cursive helps students visualize entire words instead of just letters. This explains why my students'reading fluency and spelling were both improving. In this way, cursive is superior to print in that it ignites all kinds of amazing brain activity conducive to learning.
I mentioned I slowly introduced cursive last year... One of my reasons for easing into it with trepidation, was that I saw cursive as this lofty and difficult goal. I thought I was requiring a sophisticated dexterity that could be beyond some of my students' abilities. It turns out, cursive is actually ideal for developing manual dexterity. Straight lines and perfect circles are not instinctive to little hands but swirls and flowing lines come naturally.
Of course, those first couple of weeks last year as we transitioned to cursive were challenging. The students’ little fingers needed to adjust to the new form of writing. Their initial attempts at each cursive letter were barely legible. But, very quickly as they tackled the challenge, the sloppiest print writers came out with the loveliest cursive. My students loved it, and were eager to practice and show me their beautiful writing.
In my research, I kept coming back to the question, “if cursive is so great for fine motor skills and learning, then why did we replace it with print in the first place?” Surprisingly cursive was replaced by print (ball and stick method) only a short time ago. Print was a part of the progressive education reforms in the early 20th century. Historically in the US, cursive was a part of those “Ancient Paths” of Education that we strive to tread. Cursive is a part of the educational ruins we seek to rebuild. If you do not know the history of classical education, and of the progressive reforms in the United States public school systems, then I highly recommend you read, An introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents.6 Education has been crumbling and we in the classical world seek to repair it. The best way to do this, is to return to some of the older ways.
... cursive first went out of style in the 1940s when the schools adopted ball-and-stick manuscript to go with the new Dick and Jane look-say reading programs. Ball-and-stick was part of the new progressive reforms of primary education.7 - Samuel L. Blumenfield-
In theory cursive stands as the most effective means of learning phonics (reading and spelling), as it surpasses print in its powerful effects on fine motor skills, memory, concentration, creativity, and over all cognitive skills. In its performance it requires discipline, practice, inspires excellence, and as it happens, it is beautiful to behold. As I researched and learned, I have to say, I was inspired. It is amazing to think about how God designed beautiful things to be lasting, good and true. The beauty and utility of cursive brings to mind the beauty of architecture, literature, symphonies etc. It is harmonious with the classical tradition of education.
Now, I don’t see cursive as an optional, extra thing that “we probably should do.” If I had known what I know about cursive now, I would have taught my kids cursive from the very beginning and required it. I have personally switched to exclusively writing in cursive. I can write much faster then if I was writing in print. I delight thinking about the brain activity I am employing while I am taking notes, and while my print seemed to be stagnate in its barely legible-ness, my cursive continues to improve. I approached teaching cursive this year with much more confidence and excitement, knowing my students are more than up to the task.
We have a wonderful opportunity to go back to an old and beautiful way of writing which is tried and true. Last year, as I taught my class cursive, I told them that we should strive for excellence when writing, not for our own glory but to glorify God. As we strove for excellence in our penmanship and looked back to an “antiquated” way of writing, we found treasure. Treasure in its beauty. Treasure in the discipline it requires and treasure in the amazing way it affects the human brain. Cursive is a classical method of writing rooted in a historic tradition. It is optimal for learning and for developing fine motor skills. It engages a natural movement of the hand, compared to the straight lines and circles that we ask small children to make with exact precision. It has stood the test of time. It participates in what is good, and true, and beautiful. Cursive is a part, perhaps a vital part, of the ruins that we are working to rebuild.
- Gloria Keough (2nd-3rd Grade Classroom Teacher)