WHY ARE WE TEACHING CURSIVE TO CHILDREN WHO ARE STILL NAVIGATING THE LETTER “B”?
By now you have probably heard the exciting news from the world of education: we are bringing back cursive writing, because nothing says “preparing children for the future” like requiring them to master a 17th-century penmanship system originally designed so monks could copy the Book of Leviticus without cramping.
This bold initiative is aimed primarily at emergent readers—children who are still working through complex intellectual challenges such as recognizing their own name and not eating the glue. Naturally, the next logical step is to introduce them to cursive, a writing system in which no letter looks like itself and every word resembles a decorative snake having a medical emergency.
Educators insist this is “developmentally appropriate,” which is education-speak for “we tried this once before and it didn’t work, but now we’ve added clip art.”
Let us pause and appreciate what we are asking of these children.
First, the child must learn print letters, which already look suspiciously similar to each other. Is that a b or a d? Who knows! They are mirror twins who exist solely to ruin spelling tests. You ever heard the old saying "Mind your "p's" and "q's"? Cuz they look the same and are linguistic glue-traps for kids.
So then—suddenly and without warning—we inform the child that print letters are no longer sufficient and must be replaced by cursive letters, which are:
Curvier
Loopier
Emotionally unstable
And in no way resemble the alphabet they just spent the entire year learning
For example, cursive “r” looks like a mistrustful hook. Cursive “s” looks like it gave up halfway through being a letter. And cursive “z” looks like a tiny drunk rollercoaster.
At this point, the child—who yesterday was proud of himself for writing “cat”—is now being told to connect letters without lifting the pencil, an activity that feels less like writing and more like attempting to defuse a bomb.
Adults defending cursive often say, “But it builds fine motor skills!”
Yes. So does using scissors, playing with Legos, and successfully opening a juice box without creating a crime scene. None of those require the child to decode an ancient calligraphic system that even adults can’t read.
Others argue, “But they need to read historical documents!”
How adorable. Because if there is one thing today’s children are constantly doing, it is casually browsing handwritten letters from 1847 while waiting for Roblox to load.
Let me assure you: if a child in the year 2045 needs to read a cursive document, the solution will not be “Thank goodness I learned cursive in first grade.”
The solution will be a phone that translates it instantly while ordering tacos.
And let us not forget the cruelest irony of all:
Once children finally master cursive, the adult world will respond by saying, “Please print clearly.”
That’s right. We force children to learn cursive, then punish them for using it.
Meanwhile, the real victims here are the teachers, who must explain—again and again—why the letter “f” has two entirely different personalities, neither of which resembles the print version.
So let us be honest. Teaching cursive to emergent readers is not about literacy, history, or motor development. It is about tradition, which is a polite way of saying, “This made us miserable, so now it’s your turn.”
The ONLY thing you will consistently write in cursive is your signature. So go ahead and learn how to do that. That's a good thing. You should know how to sign your name. How else will you accept unwanted registered letters, or please all your autograph seeking fans?
In conclusion, if we truly want to prepare children for the modern world, we should focus on skills like reading comprehension, clear communication, and critical thinking—not forcing six-year-olds to write in a font that even their grandparents abandoned around the same time as rotary phones.
Or, if we insist on bringing back obsolete skills, I propose we also teach children:
How to dial a rotary phone
How to rewind a VHS tape
And how to write a check, while loudly announcing, “They don’t teach this in schools anymore!”
That way, at least the confusion will be consistent.
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