At Edison Elementary School in Eugene, Kathleen Rockwell teaches cursive handwriting skills to her third grade class from the first day of school in the fall until the last day in spring.
But Rockwell’s class is hardly the norm. Because of increased technology use in schools and tighter curriculums to follow, students aren’t getting the same treatment from other teachers.
“I feel like I’m in the minority,” Rockwell said.
Students are now getting less instruction on cursive in elementary schools than they used to, despite Rockwell’s best efforts. The smaller emphasis on cursive is also starting to become evident at the University.
University History Professor James Mohr, who has examined handwritten letters and diaries from the Civil War, said there are fewer students using cursive now than there used to be.
Looking through old green book tests from one of his history classes last spring, Mohr said his students have been creating their own writing style that mixes elements of print and cursive.
“These students are really doing both,” he said. “It does appear that perhaps students are evolving a kind of in-between writing.”
Mohr said this may simply be a result of time constraints.
“There’s a lot of running together of print,” Mohr said. “It’s almost like a primitive cursive.”
Though Rockwell feels like she’s fighting a losing battle, she said it’s still more than worthwhile for her and her students.
“I bring it first thing in third grade, and they absolutely love it,” Rockwell said. “It makes them feel grown up.”
Most other teachers don’t feel as strongly as Rockwell about the importance of cursive.
Jenny Vondracek, who teaches a fourth and fifth grade split class at Edison Elementary, said there are simply more important things that teachers must prioritize above handwriting lessons.
Though cursive was a large part of elementary curriculum when she began teaching in 1986, she said, increased pressure from more standardized testing has forced teachers to put it lower on the list of priorities. About 10 to 15 years ago handwriting lost its priority while computers were just gaining a foothold.
Vondracek said children who don’t learn longhand writing may have a harder time reading it later on, and most write slower without cursive.
Still, she said, mastering cursive isn’t as crucial as it used to be because of more reliance on technology for word processing.
Vondracek also said she has noticed that students show little motivation to learn and master cursive if there are no requirements to use it later in middle school, high school and college.
“It does start to feel a little pointless as a teacher,” she said.
On reports, Vondracek said she always gives her students an option to either type their papers or write them in cursive. The choice is easy, she said.
“They always choose the computer over doing anything in cursive,” Vondracek said.
Rockwell said the ideal time to begin learning cursive is either second or third grade. After this, she said, children can’t as easily learn by imitation and will have a much harder time mastering it.
“By then it’s a missed chance,” Rockwell said. “It’s a developmental thing.”
Vondracek said children with older siblings in middle school and high school are less willing to try it because they can see that they won’t need to use it later.
“It trickles down,” she said.
Regardless of how other teachers feel about the importance of cursive handwriting, Rockwell said, she feels it is an underappreciated aspect of creating a person’s identity.
“It’s your own personal handwriting,” she said. “Printing just seems more impersonal somehow.”
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