Starting this year, California grade school students are required to learn cursive handwriting, after the skill had fallen out of fashion in the computer age. Assembly Bill 446, sponsored by former elementary school teacher Sharon Quirk-Silva and signed into law in October, requires handwriting instruction for the 2.6 million Californians in grades one to six, roughly ages 6 to 12, and cursive lessons for the "appropriate" grade levels - generally considered to be third grade and above. Experts say learning cursive improves cognitive development, reading comprehension and fine motor skills, among other benefits.

FULLERTON, California (Reuters) - A generation of children who learned to write on screens is now going old school.

Starting this year, California grade school students are required to learn cursive handwriting, after the skill had fallen out of fashion in the computer age.

Assembly Bill 446, sponsored by former elementary school teacher Sharon Quirk-Silva and signed into law in October, requires handwriting instruction for the 2.6 million Californians in grades one to six, roughly ages 6 to 12, and cursive lessons for the “appropriate” grade levels - generally considered to be third grade and above.

Experts say learning cursive improves cognitive development, reading comprehension and fine motor skills, among other benefits. Some educators also find value in teaching children to read historic documents and family letters from generations past.

  • 🇰 🔵 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️English
    2•5 months ago

    Improved reading comprehension

    I suppose if you don’t know cursive, you can’t read it and that would put a damper on your ability to comprehend it if you can’t even read it.

    And fine motor skills

    If you write legibly, it might. Cant comprehend if I can’t read it, and I can’t read it 90% of the time because whoever wrote it has crappy penmanship since they just wrote big flowing loops or tiny little scribbles instead of words that can be read by human eyes.