With the addition of technology and keyboarding to school curriculum, many educators began believing that time spent teaching cursive was not time well spent. In fact, Indiana state education officials made cursive lessons optional in 2011. One of the most common questions prospective parents ask when considering The Stanley Clark School is “Do you still teach cursive?” While many schools started removing it from their curriculum, Stanley Clark understands that there are far more benefits to cursive writing than meets the eye.

Why do we spend valuable teaching time working on what some consider “an ancient skill”? At Clark, we believe in educating the whole child, and practicing cursive has been linked to many areas of brain development, memory, and motor skills.

It’s good for your BRAIN!

As a New York Times article summarizes, “Putting pen to paper stimulates the brain like nothing else, even in this age of emails, texts, and tweets. In fact, learning to write in cursive is shown to improve brain development in the areas of thinking, language, and working memory. Cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing. As a result, the physical act of writing in cursive leads to increased comprehension and participation.”

Cursive writing activates different parts of the brain. In fact, cursive is an art form. It helps develop the side of the brain not developed by reading and writing. Studies even show that children who learn cursive score better on reading and spelling tests. To further expand upon the impact cursive has on the brain, the New York Times article even explains that one study “found that students who wrote in cursive for the essay portion of the SAT scored slightly higher than those who printed.” This could be related to the efficiency of writing in cursive, but it could also be an indication of how the brain is functioning through the writing process.

MEMORY, Processing, and Retaining Information

Children are better at processing information when they hand write it rather than type it. As an article by Maria Konnikova in The New York Times states, “When the children composed text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on a keyboard, but expressed more ideas.” In this same article, Paul Bloom, a Yale psychologist said, “With handwriting, the very act of putting it down forces you to focus on what’s important.”

Fine MOTOR SKILLS and Brain Development

While cursive helps develop fine motor skills through the use of holding the pencil and making a fluid movement, research shows that the benefits go far beyond that. Cursive writing involves using hand muscles in a different way and activates a different part of the brain. According to a Psychology Today article, the use of fine motor skills when writing cursive is integrated with students’ visual and tactile abilities. “Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of the brain become co-activated during the learning of cursive,” whereas these various parts of the brain are not activated in keyboarding. The ability to move fluidly and think coherently are integrated when students use cursive.

The Return of Cursive

As time goes on, more schools are starting to realize that removing cursive handwriting instruction may have been a mistake. A state Education Department survey in 2017 found about 20 percent of schools were teaching cursive even without a law explicitly authorizing it. As of April 2, 2018, a new state law ensures Indiana schools can teach cursive writing if local officials wish to do so. Unfortunately, not every school district is following suit, and in effect, have lost the benefits that come alongside it.

When Stanley Clark Teaches Cursive

At Stanley Clark, removing cursive writing from our curriculum was never an option. Cursive writing continues to be taught beginning in 2nd grade at SCS. Third grade students then review cursive first semester and are required to use it for most assignments the rest of the year. By 4th grade, cursive is required for all work in all subjects that entail writing sentences.

Even more than improving motor skills and memory, students who write in cursive engage multiple parts of their brain at the same time, which we believe is a critical skill. So, from enhancing memory to working on fine motor skills, teaching cursive is another component of a Stanley Clark education that ensures we are providing each student with a well-rounded education.

About the Author

Marianne King 

4th Grade Teacher 

[email protected]