Why Schools Stopped Teaching Cursive — and Why It Still Matters for Kids

Many parents remember spending part of every school day practicing loops, letters, and carefully connected words on lined paper.

Today, some parents are surprised to discover that their children receive very little cursive instruction—or sometimes none at all.

So what happened to cursive?

The biggest change came as computers became a larger part of education and schools began placing more emphasis on keyboarding. When the Common Core State Standards were introduced in 2010, they included keyboarding expectations but did not require cursive writing. As those standards spread, cursive instruction declined in many schools. Education Week

But the story is changing again.

By 2024, 24 states had some form of cursive-writing requirement, and in 2026 Education Week reported that Georgia had joined at least 24 other states bringing cursive instruction back into elementary classrooms. Education Week

Why are schools reconsidering cursive? And should parents still care about it in a world of tablets, laptops, and smartphones?

There are some good reasons to keep this traditional skill alive.

Cursive Is More Than Fancy Handwriting

Learning cursive requires children to coordinate what they see with precise hand and finger movements. It also requires them to remember how letters are formed and how those letters connect to one another.

Research on handwriting more broadly suggests that writing by hand engages the brain differently from typing. A 2024 study found substantially more widespread brain connectivity during handwriting than during keyboard typing, although that particular study involved university students rather than elementary-age children. Research with young children has also found that actively producing letters engages sensorimotor networks associated with letter recognition and reading. Frontiers

That does not mean children should stop learning keyboarding. They absolutely need computer skills.

The better approach is not handwriting or technology.

Children can benefit from learning both.

Children Still Need to Sign Their Names

Even in a digital world, signatures have not disappeared.

Children eventually become adults who may need to sign forms, applications, contracts, checks, cards, and other documents.

A child does not need beautiful calligraphy, but being comfortable writing a clear signature remains a useful life skill.

Cursive gives children an opportunity to develop that ability naturally rather than trying to figure it out later as teenagers or adults.

Cursive Helps Children Read Older Writing

There is another practical reason to understand cursive: much of our written history is in it.

Historical documents, family letters, old photographs, journals, records, and handwritten notes may all contain cursive writing.

A child who has never learned cursive may look at a handwritten document and struggle to read it.

Learning cursive is therefore not only about writing.

It is also about reading a form of writing that children will continue to encounter throughout their lives.

It Can Give Children Another Way to Practice Language Skills

Cursive practice naturally combines several important skills.

A child has to recognize letters, spell words correctly, control spacing, form sentences, and pay attention to punctuation.

That means handwriting practice can also become vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and writing practice.

Instead of having a child repeatedly copy random letters, parents can ask them to write vocabulary words, short sentences, or a few lines about their day in cursive.

Now the child is practicing several skills at the same time.

Why Did Schools Reduce It in the First Place?

There is a reasonable explanation.

Teachers have only so many hours in the school day.

As computers became essential, schools needed to make time for keyboarding, digital research, technology skills, test preparation, and expanding academic requirements.

Something had to give, and cursive was one of the subjects that often received less attention.

So the debate does not need to be framed as schools making a terrible mistake.

Education changed.

The question parents are asking now is whether cursive disappeared too much.

The growing number of states returning cursive instruction to classrooms suggests that educators and lawmakers are reconsidering that balance. Education Week

How Parents Can Help at Home

If your child receives little cursive instruction at school, you do not need to turn handwriting into a long nightly assignment.

Ten or fifteen minutes of regular practice can be enough to make progress.

Start with lowercase letters, then uppercase letters, simple words, your child's name, short sentences, and eventually complete paragraphs.

The most important thing is consistency.

Children usually improve much more through short, repeated practice than through an occasional hour-long handwriting session.

And this is one area where Smart Learner can help fill a gap that may exist in your child's school curriculum.

Smart Learner Includes Cursive Writing Instruction

Smart Learner was designed to give children opportunities to learn and practice important academic skills at home—including skills that may not receive much classroom time anymore.

Cursive writing is taught in Smart Learner.

Rather than parents having to search for random handwriting worksheets online, children can work through structured learning material and then practice what they are learning.

Smart Learner also gives children access to related language skills such as reading, vocabulary, grammar, and writing. That matters because handwriting should not exist by itself. Children can use cursive while practicing spelling, vocabulary words, sentence construction, and written expression.

And because Smart Learner can be used at the child's own pace, there is no pressure to keep up with the rest of a classroom.

If a child needs more practice forming certain letters, they can practice them again.

If they are ready to move ahead, they can continue.

Printable workbook activities can provide additional pencil-and-paper practice away from the computer as well.

A Skill Does Not Have to Be Old-Fashioned Just Because It Is Old

Children should learn to type.

They should know how to use computers.

They should also understand modern technology.

But learning a new skill does not necessarily require abandoning an older useful one.

There is room for both a keyboard and a pencil.

For parents who are concerned that their child is receiving little or no cursive-writing instruction at school, Smart Learner provides a way to keep that skill from disappearing.

At Star Learning Systems, our goal is to give families additional educational resources they can use at home—whether a child needs help catching up, wants extra practice, or simply wants to learn something that is no longer receiving much classroom time.

If you would like to see how Smart Learner can support cursive writing and other important academic skills, learn more at StarLearningSystems.com.