There’s something to be said about receiving a handwritten thank you note in cursive. Sure, anybody can write a letter in print, but the lost art of cursive has a more sincere and personal effect. 

The fact that I can read the cursive-written cards and notes that my late grandmother took the time to write for me means a lot. I don’t have to rely on others to read those memories.

I believe students should still be required to learn this style of writing. There are many reasons for learning cursive, whether it be to write a letter to someone, to provide your signature on important papers or even to read a historical document.

One of the major benefits of making cursive a mandatory learning subject in schools is that it teaches children how to write their signature, which they will need to provide countless times throughout their lives. 

A person’s signature is unique to them and makes it difficult for others to forge their name on important documents. So essentially, learning to write one’s name in cursive for signing or approving something will improve security and help prevent identity theft.

In addition, many important historical documents were originally written in cursive. The Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights are all examples of famous pieces of history that were written in some form of cursive.

While we are able to find versions of these documents in simple print online, being able to read the original ideas expressed in these historical documents adds value. 

Having the ability to write in cursive can also help students perform better in school settings. According to an article on memoriapress.com, “Studies indicate that college students remembered information better one week later when they transcribed a paragraph in cursive than when they printed it or used a keyboard.”

Although one could argue that print is much easier to learn and is still useful, having the ability to write in cursive is a valuable skill to have, even if we don’t end up using it often.

Freshman Maddie Lee of Locust agrees with the notion of teaching cursive in schools. 

“I think that cursive writing is a good skill to have because you never know when you’re going to need to be able to read something where somebody writes entirely in cursive,” Lee said. “It’s kind of like learning to drive with stick and learning to drive with automatic, automatic is definitely easier but stick is really useful to learn.”