The Future of Cursive

Originally published here on April 2, 2008.

Almost a year ago now I wrote a post on my personal blog about cursive. The gist of the post was that

• There's nothing particular sacred about cursive and it changes over time


• Elementary school are under pressure to teach more and more, and sooner or later the time factor will require that we remove something from the curriculum to make room for the new demands.


• Cursive is (in my opinion) an obsolete skill that gets little use today.

The post on cursive has become one of my most visited pages on the personal blog. I solicited opinions on the matter from the International Reading Association's listserv. You can read some of the responses I got at my blog. You can also see some writing samples that show the development of cursive - from the Mayflower Compact to the penmanship of President Lincoln.

My hope is that the education community will soon decide that cursive in a 19th century skill that needs to make way for 21st Century Learning sorts of skills - like keyboarding...