Part 4 - What’s So Special About Cursive?

If you’re my age, do you remember January in second grade? That’s when I learned cursive. It was thrilling! But by the time I was teaching second grade, cursive was gone. The era of teaching to the Ohio Fourth Grade Proficiency Test had begun.
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So what’s so special about cursive? Take a stroll down cursive’s timeline to see how it developed and why it might be coming back.
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                                                          My Sources: Who Invented Cursive? - Word Smarts
                                            Why Cursive Writing and Penmanship Is Important - Word Smarts


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                                                          Part 4: The Twentieth Century and a New Millenia

​The late 1800s brought change. Spencerian was too slow for clerks and telegraph operators who had to turn Morse code into cursive. 

Austin Palmer had a new idea, and a how-to book. He also taught writers to use their arm muscles to write faster. It worked!
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The Palmer Method became super successful for business and personal writing. If your great grandparents wrote letters during the early 1900s, their handwriting would have looked like this.
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Do you recognize Zaner-Bloser from your schooldays? I printed in it. In 2nd grade I learned cursive, and in 3rd grade I HAD to use it…on spelling tests and everything else! Imagine spelling a word right but mixing up a cursive stroke. URGH!
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​Elmer W. Bloser, a classmate and friend of Zaner, bought part of the company in 1891. Five years later they renamed it, Zaner & Bloser, and in 1921 it became simply Zaner-Bloser. As of 1972 ownership of Zaner-Bloser was sold to Highlights for Children. They still own it, and children still learn their letters from them.


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So what happened to all those kids born in the late 80s like mine? All three of them print. The only thing they write in cursive is a signature. Why?

My two sources claim it’s because of keyboards and touchscreens. That’s partly true: we take tests online. But from my perch as a 2nd grade teacher, it’s testing. From 3rd grade up, tests dominate the curriculum. If it’s not on that test, teachers don’t teach it. They might want to, but penmanship isn’t tested.

In Europe, kids are still taught penmanship, and it’s coming back here in the states. Would you believe in 2024 California became the 22nd state to require that cursive be taught again? Why? Research is beginning to show that there are benefits to cursive, like increasing memory. People who take notes on paper remember things longer. 

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My two original sources:
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1.https://wordsmarts.com/cursive-penmanship/?lctg=c4d2fe5b-125d-41db-a63c-ea78909f2d82
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2. https://wordsmarts.com/history-cursive-writing/?lctg=a98ce4ad-51ba-48fd-ac39-1bd7f46aac1d

If you’d like to learn more, check out this link. It lists twelve benefits your child will miss if they don’t learn cursive. Link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/the-death-of-cursive-writing-will-have-serious-consequences-for-your-grandkids/ss-AA1OTN8q?ocid=winp2fp

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