Last week I read something and thought, “Is it possible that California finally got something right?”
When the Common Core State Standards were introduced in 2010, they explicitly referenced learning keyboard skills in grades 3 through 5. The standards require fourth graders to type a full page in one sitting. As a result, cursive was largely abandoned in most school districts.
However, this trend is now reversing, according to data from MyCursive.com, which tracks cursive writing requirements nationwide.
Cursive writing is making a comeback in many U.S. states after being dropped over a decade ago. Currently, 21 states mandate some form of handwriting education. Most recently, California passed a law in October 2023 making cursive handwriting mandatory from first through sixth grade.
Is this the right thing to do?
According to a recent study, the answer is “yes.”
From Epoch Health:
A recent study from Norway found that the old-school art of handwriting engages parts of the brain that tapping on a keyboard does not. The intricate movements involved in handwriting activate more regions of the brain associated with learning than typing does.
The new study published in Frontiers in Psychology and led by Audrey van der Meer, a neuroscience researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, examined the differences between handwriting and typing. Ms. Van der Meer and her team analyzed the neural networks involved in both activities to uncover their respective impacts on brain connectivity.
“We show that when writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns are far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard,” she said in a press statement. “Such widespread brain connectivity is known to be crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, is beneficial for learning.”
So it does appear that our legislators in Sacramento do occasionally get something “write,” or should I better say, “correct!”
2/17/24