While teaching 4th grade, I discovered that most of my students had little knowledge of cursive. Not only could they not form the letters properly, but they couldn't read anything written in cursive fonts. At first it made it easy to have students deliver "coded" notes back and forth to colleagues, but when I noticed that students were unable to access some books and many written items out in the world (menus, signs, instructions). Cursive is important for the brain and it's been found to be beneficial for students with dyslexia. Studies have found that cursive activates more places in the brain than print or typing.
I systematically began teaching a few letters a day. I showed students how to form the letters on the Smart board while they wrote them on white boards. We compared and contrasted the print form verses the cursive form of each letter. Then we played "you against the teacher" for extra recess points. I'd call out a letter (one we had already learned) and the whole class had to write it on their whiteboards and show it to me. If they were all correct, they earned a point. If I saw one that was incorrect, I simply stated that I earned a point for no recess. (Yes, they always won).
When it came to practice, I could only find boring pages of worksheets full of random words. So I created Cursive with a Twist. It allowed students to practice our current vocabulary words, number words, and sentences or phrases that people actually use. I even added exit tickets and challenges at the end to keep students engaged longer and help them access the rich literary experiences of the world.
Cursive with a Twist
For more information on cursive, you can find a good article at www.frontiersin.org
Askvik, E. O., Van der Weel, F., & Van der Meer, A. L. (2020, July 28). The Importance of Cursive Handwriting Over Typewriting for Learning in the Classroom: A High-Density EEG Study of 12-Year-Old Children and Young Adults. Retrieved February 17, 2021, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01810/full
