Cursive writing never out of style in Catholic schools

Studies show manuscript writing helps with motor skills, brain development

Published: March 12, 2015

By Aprille Hanson
Associate Editor

Aprille Hanson

Abby Crawford, 9, (left) practices her cursive with the rest of Anne Simmermaker’s third-grade class at Our Lady of the Holy Souls School in Little Rock. Cursive has always been taught in Catholic schools.

Aprille Hanson

In February, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a bill requiring all public schools to again teach cursive writing, saying in a Feb. 25 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article, “It’s a good balance for young people, blending the future with what is important in our society.”

It’s this exact sentiment the Catholic schools throughout Arkansas have said all along while teaching cursive writing even when the public schools did not.

“I think one reasoning it kind of got pushed out of public schools was Benchmark testing and gearing in on the language arts and math … teachers felt like they had little time to teach other things like cursive writing,” said Vernell Bowen, superintendent of Arkansas Catholic schools. “We think it’s a very important thing to write cursive; they have to sign their name in cursive … you can’t just print your name, so it’s a legal issue. Learning to write cursively requires using a different part of the brain, the more creative side of the brain. The types of muscles you use really develop fine motor skills in the wrist and hand.”

In most of the state’s Catholic schools, cursive is started in the latter part of second grade or in third grade, with many upper elementary and middle school teachers requiring assignments written in cursive.

“I require all of my work to be turned in in cursive. The students can write their notes in print,” said Teresa McKay, who teaches fifth and sixth graders at St. Mary School in Paragould.

McKay said many second graders in the school are excited to learn cursive and have “beautiful handwriting before the third grade.” For the fifth- and sixth-grade students McKay teaches, she still focuses on cursive writing and grades on penmanship.

“There are certain things you have to go back and reteach. The bad habits are a little harder to break,” McKay said. “The O’s they want to make a complete circle around; the cursive T’s and cursive F’s are terrible to learn how to do. The cursive Z is sometimes hard for them to write.”

But taking the class time to fine tune the skills is a small price to pay for what the students gain from knowing cursive, McKay said.

“If you go back in history, all of the original historical documents are written in cursive. Eventually no one will be able to read historical documents” if cursive writing isn’t taught, McKay said.

To preserve history and write a signature are small parts of the bigger picture when it comes to cursive writing.

Suzanne Baruch Asherson, an occupational therapist and a national presenter for Handwriting Without Tears, an early childhood education company that include books that Bowen says some of the Catholic schools in Arkansas use, wrote a 2013 New York Times article titled, “The Benefits of Cursive Go Beyond Writing.” Asherson explained cursive improves brain development in thinking, language and memory.

“Cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing,” Asherson wrote. “The College Board found that students who wrote in cursive for the essay portion of the SAT scored slightly higher than those who printed. As a result, the physical act of writing in cursive leads to increased comprehension and participation.”

While on the surface, cursive writing and sports are hardly comparable, author William Klemm, who has a doctorate in biology and is a senior professor of neuroscience at Texas A&M University, said they both improve hand-eye coordination.

He compares catching a ball and the art of cursive in part of the post “Biological and Psychology Benefits of Learning Cursive” written for Psychology Today: “The brain is creating new circuitry to evaluate what is seen, the speed of what is seen, the movements required and the speed and timing of movements. This circuitry becomes a lasting part of the brain … Learning to write by hand has these same features, plus of course there is a thinking element involved that does not occur with simple throw and catch movements. The thinking level is magnified in cursive because the specific hand-eye coordination requirements are different for every letter in the alphabet.”

In Mike Martin’s fourth-grade classroom at St. Vincent de Paul School in Rogers, cursive is intertwined in another important area of learning — religion. With a year of cursive already under their belts, the students in Martin’s class study “Writing Our Catholic Faith Handwriting Series” which focuses on writing assignments that teach about the Bible and Catholicism.

“Recently they had to write about Noah and explain why God allowed the flood to come up on the people,” Martin said. “As I’ve studied the Bible, Paul writes to be an imitator of (God). Christ and Paul, what they’ve done is set a pattern for us. As a teacher, I get to set the pattern of writing (cursive). I’ve found a lot of it to be applicable in faith-based teaching.”

Some of the cursive writing debate is directly related to technology, but Martin said technology has helped him in teaching cursive.

“Personally I like technology, but I think we have to come to a place on a common ground. I don’t think you can just throw out the old and bring in the new; it’s about merging the two,” he said.

“Smartboards are helpful in teaching cursive,” Martin said. “To put a cursive page on the board and show the students when to come all the way down with an over stroke and under stroke” rather than drawing out lines on a chalkboard, “You can show them exactly what you want on the board.”

McKay and Martin both said they’ve worked with several students from public schools who enroll that have never been taught cursive. There’s always a “grace and mercy” period, as Martin said, when expecting all assignments to be in cursive. But, most children at that young age are resilient and pick up the material quickly, he said.

“You have to start teaching it like they don’t know it. Most of the time they pick it up pretty good. Sometimes they don’t want to continue cursive on their daily work,” but they adjust, McKay said. “I’m excited the public schools are going to start doing that. It’s something they’ll do throughout their life.”

However, talk is cheap if the teachers themselves don’t use cursive writing. Bowen and McKay both said they use cursive in correspondence and note-taking.

“When you learn to write cursive it’s more of a fluid thing. To me, it’s faster than printing,” Bowen said. “I remember things better when I write cursive than typing on my iPad.”

For Martin, who admits you have to “practice what you preach,” said even though cursive isn’t used 100 percent of the time, the skill strengthens all forms of penmanship.

“I learned cursive when I was a student in third grade. Over the years you use it less when you go to high school and college when you create your own form of cursive,” Martin said. “My handwriting in the past has been described as a doctor’s, so horrible. Now, I watch how I write. You have to pay attention to what you’re doing.”