Legislator Introduces Bill That Requires Students To Be Taught Cursive Handwriting In New Jersey Schools

Dec 20, 2019 by apost team

There was once a time when every student in school learned to write beautiful cursive. While this skill has fallen by the wayside, New Jersey Assemblywoman Angela McKnight is stepping up to ensure that it be brought back to her state.

She has introduced a new elementary school bill that makes it mandatory for every student to be taught cursive writing.

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 The Association also said that writing cursive makes it harder to forge a signature and that most important historical documents were written in cursive.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.