The keyboard has not yet eliminated the pen. On March 10, 2025, the New Jersey Assembly Education Committee unanimously passed Assembly Bill 3865, mandating the return of cursive handwriting instruction for public school students in grades three through five.
By the end of elementary school, these students must read and write legibly in script—a skill that has long been drifting toward extinction.
Historical Significance of Cursive Writing
Many consider legislating the return of an ancient practice in our high-speed, digital age to be a futile and inefficient gesture to the past. Ironically, cursive originated to write more efficiently and quickly. Born in the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, it was designed to increase the speed for scribes to fly across papyrus without lifting their pens.
However, by the Victorian era (1837-1901), cursive had evolved from a practical tool to a flourishing expression of one’s personality. To write with beauty and elegance implied culture and education.
Psychological and Cognitive Benefits
Moving past nostalgia and social perceptions, there are profound, almost biological justifications for keeping the loop and the curve.
Cursive forces young children to “cross the midline,” which means exercising the motor skills of the hands to work on both the left and right sides. Thus, those endless loops and flowing scripts are complex neural exercises in disguise. Cursive’s continuous, fluid motion demands a unique collaboration between the brain’s left and right hemispheres. It integrates coordination in ways that printing or tapping on a keyboard or glass screen cannot.
Connecting letters also connects neurons and anchors memory. Many educators reduced cursive to a writing style. However, it is a deceptively simple exercise that initiates coordination and growth. As children master this skill, they weave the two halves of their brain into a unified whole.
Starting Early
The full benefits of writing in script come from starting early. Children are innate artists, naturally drawn to drawing long before they worry about grammar. Cursive is just drawing with a message. It possesses a flowing continuity that standard print lacks, allowing letters to flow into one another and creating a distinct visual rhythm.
This connection does more than look elegant; it cements spelling into muscle memory and strengthens the parietal lobe and central regions of the brain. The most artistic form of writing is also the most practical tool for teaching a child to read.
Cursive also engages the brain’s reward centers, which aids memory retention. When a letter is physically shaped in script, it is remembered differently from when it is printed in block letters. For students with dyslexia, the continuous flow of cursive can prevent the visual stumbling often caused by disconnected printed letters, offering a smoother path to literacy. This difficulty frequently occurs when they confuse the printed letters b and d.
Enter Cursive
In the frenetic rush to stay connected, eloquence and style are most often sacrificed.
Technological considerations aside, cursive is a beautiful, intentional act of calm and reflection. It forces the writer to pause and think deeply while content is fashioned, crafting words that carry significance rather than just raw data.
Embracing cursive does not mean becoming a Luddite and burning keyboards. However, the pen should be invited back into the conversation. It does not replace the digital; it puts it in its place. It adds a necessary layer of artistic personality, soothing grace and intellectual development that is so needed in this high-speed digital world.
First published on TFP.org.
Photo Credit: © mzahid – stock.adobe.com (keyboard)
Photo Credit: © cosma – stock.adobe.com (quill)