Cursive: Disappearing from School Curriculum

Cursive handwriting may be a thing of the past for some elementary students. With computers, smart boards and dry erase boards – cursive just isn’t taught how it once was. But a school in Houston County disagrees. They say cursive is still an essential part of the curriculum.

Houston County Schools Reading and Language Arts Coordinator Nancy Richardson knows there are concerns about cursive writing in the classroom and says, “With the demands of the curriculum it’s very hard to squeeze everything in that needs attention.”

The students at Bonaire Elementary are introduced to cursive in the third grade. Reading Teacher Tanya Rowburrey says they learn how to form the letters and by fourth grade most students are writing in cursive.

Richardson says, “We feel that it’s very important, but not at the expense of all other areas of language arts.”

The Georgia Performance standard for cursive says students must write legibly in cursive, leaving spaces between letters in a word and between words in a sentence. Cursive writing is an element under the state standard.

Richardson says they haven’t given up on cursive writing and will continue to address it in Houston County schools.