Cursive mandate hits Pa. schools in April
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Cursive is making a comeback in Pennsylvania classrooms this April under a new state law.
Why it matters: Spending valuable class time teaching students to put pen to paper is a nationwide trend, despite students using computers for a growing share of assignments.
Driving the news: The new mandate, passed in February, elevates writing "print, joined italics and cursive handwriting" as an essential subject alongside reading, history and arithmetic that all Pennsylvania students must be taught in public and private schools.
- The state Department of Education is developing guidance and expectations for schools.
Flashback: Pennsylvania and many other states ditched cursive writing as a mandatory subject in the early 2010s when they adopted Common Core education standards, which focused more on keyboard skills.
Yes, but: Many districts across the Keystone State have continued to teach cursive, including Pittsburgh Public Schools.
Zoom in: Kristen Justus, assistant superintendent of elementary education and curriculum for Pine-Richland School District, tells Axios the district teaches cursive as part of its second-grade curriculum and plans to continue with updated guidance.
- "As a district, we were already planning in-service sessions to review all of our collective commitments within English Language Arts this spring," said Justus.
- The New Kensington-Arnold School District told TribLive in February it was in the process of revising its curriculum to include cursive — likely in first or second grades.
Between the lines: Studies have shown that learning cursive can help improve students' memories and motor skills.
Plus: There's a close link between reading and writing, while cursive has several additional benefits, Shawn Datchuk, a special education expert and former director of the Iowa Reading Research Center, tells Axios.
- When writing cursive, students are learning how to connect letters while engaging in spelling words — foundational skills for how much students write and the quality of their writing, he said.
- And in the age of computer spellcheckers, students still need some spelling skills to use them, he noted.
The big picture: Republican State Rep. Dane Watro, who sponsored the House bill, said it boosts civic engagement by keeping historical documents like the U.S. Constitution accessible.
Zoom out: Students are required to learn cursive in more than two dozen states, NPR reports.
The bottom line: While some districts focus more on typing in a tech-heavy world, some teachers have a "longing to go back to a time when things were a little simpler," Philadelphia-area elementary school teacher Dawn Hiltner tells Axios.