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How Important Is Cursive?

Wikipedia Commons user Sotakeit

This weekend a group of Cincinnati teachers will learn new ways to teach cursive writing in elementary school, at a time when support for it is waning. Many districts, including Cincinnati Public Schools, don't teach cursive because there is no handwriting component in Common Core.   

Type or hype

For the next two days educators withHandwriting Without Tearsshow teachers how to "mimic a puppet to magically learn letters and become tow trucks to crank-up letters for connecting." A Cincinnati conference will be February 5th and 6th at the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza downtown.

Ohio Representatives Cheryl Grossman R-Grove City and Andy Brenner R-Powell are sponsoring legislation to make it mandatory for teachers to teach cursive writing in all elementary schools. Indiana and a hand full of other states are also introducing or have passed the plan.

"What we're finding is that when children write in a connective way like they do with cursive writing, it really helps kind of spark creativity," said workshop presenter Paula Heinricher.

Reacting to people who say kids don't need to learn cursive in the digital age, she says, "Before they are proficient typers they need to be proficient writers."

Ann Thompson has decades of journalism experience in the Greater Cincinnati market and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her reporting.