Each of the 15 students in Mollie Sweeney\u2019s third grade class raised their dominant hand.<\/p>\n
Sweeney, a teacher at Burrell\u2019s Bon Air Elementary, then walked through the motions of how to write a lowercase letter in cursive. Students air-traced the motion.<\/p>\n
Only after that did the students take pencil to paper to trace, and eventually write, cursive letters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like learning cursive,\u201d said student Margaret Cleasman, 8. \u201cMy favorite part is writing my name and learning the uppercase G. It\u2019s the hardest letter in all of cursive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those lessons will soon be replicated in elementary school classrooms across the state.<\/p>\n
Gov. Josh Shapiro last week signed into law a bill that will require a cursive handwriting curriculum in all Pennsylvania public schools.<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s office said the law will take effect 60 days after Shapiro signed the bill Wednesday.<\/p>\n
It applies to all public and private elementary schools across the state.<\/p>\n
The legislation was sponsored by state Rep. Dane Watro, R-Luzerne, with bipartisan support. In the memo, Watro cited research that shows learning cursive \u201cactivates areas of the brain involved in executive function, fine motor skills and working memory.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a direct connection between cursive writing and improving reading skills,\u201d said Sweeney, who herself learned cursive when she was in second grade in the Riverview School District. \u201cIt\u2019s really great for fine motor skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania joins 24 other states that require schools to teach cursive.<\/p>\n
Burrell has taught cursive to students in third grade for the past two years, said Autumn Turk, director of curriculum and development. Prior to that, it was taught in second grade.<\/p>\n
Turk said cursive alone doesn\u2019t directly correlate to improved academics, but rather complements it. Handwriting instruction \u2014 and physically writing on paper with pencil \u2014 does, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a district, we have spent the past five years learning more about the science of reading and how we can best help our students become skilled readers, writers, thinkers and learners,\u201d Turk said. \u201cWe have learned about how important it is for a child\u2019s brain to be activated through instruction and practice that integrates listening, reading, speaking and writing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The New Kensington-Arnold School District doesn\u2019t teach cursive, said Superintendent Christopher Sefcheck, \u201cbut it won\u2019t be hard to put in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll sit down with our curriculum leaders and see where it fits in,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re in the process of revising our curriculum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sefcheck anticipates cursive lessons to be implemented in first or second grades. He said he\u2019s all for students learning cursive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so widely used in the real world,\u201d he said. \u201cI think writing cursive is also going to help with literacy and reading skills. It shows the development of a child, more than just writing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advocates say knowledge of cursive will help generations as they read historical documents, such as the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, which were drafted in cursive.<\/p>\n
They also note, in the age of technological advancement and artificial intelligence, a person\u2019s signature can act as a unique identifier that would be difficult for AI to replicate. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of sentimental value to signatures,\u201d said Annette Vee, an English professor at the University of Pittsburgh. \u201cThey can be forged anyway \u2014 kids have been forging parents\u2019 notes forever \u2014 but I think what signifies its meaning is that they\u2019re socially conducted artifacts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a revisiting of authenticity and history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vee said she ran her signature through Gemini, Google\u2019s AI assistant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it does a pretty good job,\u201d Vee said. \u201cI can tell it\u2019s not mine, but someone else might not look twice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penn-Trafford School District has maintained its cursive education over the years as part of its elementary school reading curriculum, Superintendent Matthew Harris said.<\/p>\n
Students learn print handwriting in kindergarten through first grade before moving on to cursive in second grade. The district has never considered eliminating cursive lessons, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always thought it was important and an essential skill,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
Sweeney said cursive lessons are popular among students because it makes them feel like adults.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like doing my name and my friends\u2019 names and doing different letters,\u201d said Sully Landis, 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each of the 15 students in Mollie Sweeney\u2019s third grade class raised their dominant hand. Sweeney, a teacher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-121110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-pennsylvania","9":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","10":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}