We can all still probably remember the first time we had been taught in school how to write in cursive. It’s a useful tool back then.
Times have changed, however, and not that many schools these days find it a necessary skill to teach children.
But there are still certain jurisdictions that sees its importance. In Alabama, for example, a law named “Lexi’s Law” mandates that public school children should be able to write legibly in cursive before third grade.
According to State Rep. Dickie Drake, who sponsored the bill, he got the idea after a conversation with her granddaughter Lexi.
“She was in the first grade and wanted to learn ‘real writing,'” Dickie Drake told TODAY Parents. “After much research of schools in the state of Alabama, I found that it was not being taught all over the state — hit and miss. … This bill is for all my grandchildren and others just like them.”
However, there are critics that are questioning the law’s use, many of them are claiming that cursive is now obsolete.
Introduced in 2010 and adopted by 42 states including the District of Columbia, the Common Core State Standards initiative requires children to have “keyboarding skills” instead.
Absent from the initiative is any mention of cursive, thus making many school districts to limit or drop handwriting instruction altogether.
In fact, according to one national survey of 612 elementary school teachers, 41% of them had dropped learning cursive from their lesson plan.
“I would definitely feel sad if they took it away from her curriculum,” said Lyla Gleason, whose 6-year-old daughter will be starting 2nd grade in New York City this fall. “Even if these kids are mostly typing when they grow up, I would still like her to learn script.”
But not all parents agree with Lyla.
In his June column at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans titled, “It’s hard to understand Louisiana’s new cursive mandate,” dad and editor Jarvis DeBerry writes: “Is this handwriting requirement based on anything other than the argument that writes: we learned it and turned out fine?
“It would be nice if my daughter learned cursive, but not at the expense of her falling behind her counterparts around the world whose fingers will be flying over keys.”
Personally, do you think learning cursive still has a place in today’s world? Would you want your children to learn an obsolete skill just for the heck of it?
READ: Teach junior to read and write
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