COLUMBUS, Ohio – Some state legislators have renewed efforts from two years ago to bring cursive handwriting back to Ohio’s elementary schools.
State representatives Andrew Brenner, a Powell Republican, and Marilyn Slaby, a Copley Republican, proposed a bill Monday that would make cursive instruction mandatory again between kindergarten and fifth grade.
House Bill 58 would require schools to “ensure that students develop the ability to print letters and words legibly by third grade and to create readable documents using legible cursive handwriting by the end of fifth grade.”
Another 13 representatives have signed on as co-sponsors.
Slaby, a former elementary school teacher, said that writing letters and words by hand reinforces reading skills and the sounds of the words in students’ brains much more than just typing them.
She also said that learning to write cursive ensures that students can read the centuries worth of pre-keyboard documents written by hand. Without cursive instruction, she said, students are unable to read even this country’s historical documents.
“All of those would be of no use if the couldn’t read handwriting,” she said. “If the can’t write, they can’t read it.”
Brenner was a co-sponsor of a similar bill in 2015 that never gained enough traction to pass.
As we reported then, the state does not require cursive to be taught in schools and it is not part of the multi-state Common Core standards that Ohio bases its own standards on.
Cursive is also not part of state tests which are done mostly by typing online now.
Though cursive is included in the model curriculum the state has offered to districts since 2011, many have stopped teaching cursive and teach printing or keyboard skills instead.
Neither the Ohio Education Association or Ohio Federation of Teachers, the two large teachers unions in the state, could point to any districts in 2015 that teach cursive, with both saying it is less important in a keyboard-based world.
The Cleveland school district also does not teach cursive.
“CMSD does not include cursive in our current curriculum,” district spokesperson Roseann Canfora told The Plain Dealer in 2015. “Preparing our students for success in 21st century college and careers requires teaching them computer and typing skills rather than penmanship.”
She added: “Cursive’s use and relevance at school and at work is likely to continue to decline with the increase in use of laptops, tablets and cell phones.”
The state school board, however, backed using cursive with a 2014 resolution that stated that “studies and research have shown that instruction in cursive writing develops fine motor skills and improve literacy,” in a resolution supporting cursive.
“The State Board of Education wishes to emphasize that instruction in cursive writing is important and beneficial for children, and to support boards of education who continue to teach cursive writing as part of their English Language Arts Curriculum,” the resolution states.
Other states have also passed laws in the last few years to require cursive to be taught. According to research by the Education Commission of the States, which tracks school-related policies and laws across the country, states with new cursive laws include:
- Arkansas – passed H.B. 1044 earlier this year. The bill requires all public elementary schools to teach cursive writing as a component of English language arts by the end of 3rd grade beginning in the 2015-16 school year.
- South Carolina – in 2014 passed H.B. 3905, which requires that each school district (1) provide instruction in cursive writing to ensure that students can create readable documents through legible cursive handwriting by the end of fifth grade; and (2) require students to memorize multiplication tables to ensure that students can effectively multiply numbers by the end of fifth grade.
- Tennessee – in 2014 passed H.B. 1697, which requires cursive to be taught in third grade.
- Idaho – in 2013 passed H.C.R. 3, which states the findings of the legislature and requests that the state board commence rulemaking to require that cursive handwriting be taught in the state public elementary schools.
- North Carolina – in 2013 passed H.B. 146, which requires the state board of education to ensure instruction in cursive writing and memorization of multiplication tables as a part of the basic education program.
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