A New Jersey legislator is taking another shot at making cursive writing education mandatory. Angela McKnight is stepping up to ensure that it be brought back to her state.
Doug Naidus, CEO of World Business Lenders and Assemblywoman Angela Mcknight attend the World Business Lenders Fall Social on October 24, 2019 in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for World Business Lenders)
Some schools have already taken the initiative and started to teach cursive writing to their students thanks to McKnight’s suggestions. McKnight explained her decision to introduce the new bill in a statement as per CNN that many students were starting middle school without even knowing how to sign their names in cursive.
She considered this to be a serious disservice to the students since they will need to know how to sign their names once they graduate and get out into the world.
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McKnight also pointed out that, even in our technologically advanced world, students that don’t know cursive will be unable to read certain fonts and won’t even be equipped to sign a check. Cursive writing was first dropped from the Common Core standards back in 2010, but this new bill is set to bring it back to the school system.
New Jersey isn’t the only state that is pursuing the re-addition of cursive in school. Texas, California, and North Carolina are also putting it back into their curriculum. Cursive writing isn’t only a benefit for tasks such as signing checks, but it may also be a skill that helps those suffering from dyslexia.
The International Dyslexia Association pointed out that cursive can help those with dyslexia by providing a unit that makes it easier to properly spell words. The Association also said that writing cursive makes it harder to forge a signature and that most important historical documents were written in cursive.
While cursive is not every student’s favorite subject, these new bills are a huge step in the right direction according to many professionals. Do you think that there is a benefit to learning cursive, or are students better without it? Let us know what you think in the comment section below, and then tell your friends to weigh in as well.
