Ohio to Teach Kids Cursive Again – Should Michigan?
All rivalries aside, is Ohio right on this one?
Click on Detroit reports that Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed a bill into law recently which says curriculum will be developed to teach children in kindergarten through fifth grade how to write in cursive. Under the law, kids will have to be able to print letters legibly by the end of third grade and write in cursive by the end of the fifth grade.
Some schools in Michigan still teach cursive, but many don't, according to Click on Detroit.
I feel like when I was a kid, penmanship and cursive were really focused on in first and second grade.
There was that brownish-colored, flimsy paper with the dots in the middle of the lines to teach you where your letters should hit-- anyone else remember that?
I'm not entirely sure where I stand on the issue. I mean, most of us all type everything now anyway... but learning cursive could be good for hand-eye coordination and uh... other things?
Here's a quote from a pro-cursive piece from Time Magazine, on the subject,
Research suggests that printing letters and writing in cursive activate different parts of the brain. Learning cursive is good for children's fine motor skills, and writing in longhand generally helps students retain more information and generate more ideas."
What do you think-- should Michigan schools require that kids learn cursive?