In Texas Schools, Cursive is Making a Comeback

It was once one of the toughest classes a second grader ever had to take. Learning cursive writing and cursive letters could be one of the most brutal parts of the school year. "A new alphabet? I just had to learn one of those," we'd all think.

But with time and advances in technology, the ability to quickly write became less and less necessary and fell out of favor with schools across the country. Texas schools, however, are bringing it back. Thanks to the updated Texas education code elementary school students in second grade will learn cursive writing while students in third grade will be expected to be able to proficient in cursive handwriting, and should write complete words with appropriate spaces in between words. By fourth grade, students will be expected to complete assignments in cursive.

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A recent study by Bic found that only 25% of American students, from elementary school to high school, could write in cursive. Though some may assume that cursive writing is antiquated and not necessary to be taught in public schools, Diane Schallert, a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas, believes that learning cursive would actually be extremely beneficial to students because it's been proven to increase their abilities in effective learning and language comprehension.

So yeah, maybe cursive still isn't the most important thing in the world in terms of everyday practicality. Aside from having a legible signature or being able to write thank-you notes like an adult, none of us use cursive all that much anymore. But hey, none of us use much math every day either, but subjects like Algebra help people learn how to reason and give them deduction skills they otherwise wouldn't have learned. Sometimes it's not about the stuff you use every day.

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In Texas Schools, Cursive is Making a Comeback