Back to school: Back to cursive in the classroom under Iowa Education standards

SIOUX CITY (KTIV) - Cursive is back in Iowa schools.

The ability to read and write cursive has been fading from American society.

“You just don’t see very many people using cursive because a lot of people are not writing checks anymore,” said Tina Brennan, one of Sioux City Community School District’s consulting teachers.

It’s often referred to as a lost skill, taught in grade school during older generations’ time in the classroom.

Brennan recalled her time learning as a student, “I learned cursive from my third-grade teacher. She had beautiful cursive writing, and I just enjoyed that. I favor cursive more.”

In 2010, the United States government removed cursive from the required Common Core Standards for Kindergarten through 12th grade education.

Amy Denney, Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment said, “A lot of people in my generation remember learning cursive, and in younger generations, it hasn’t been a part of what we’ve been traditionally teaching in literacy instruction, but it is coming back, and so it’s a small component, but it is in there.”

As of June 2024, It’s part of the new Iowa Academic Standards, under Writing Foundations.

Kindergarten through First grade the students focus on the handwriting components.

By 3rd grade, students must form all upper and lowercase cursive letters efficiently and proportionately, and produce cursive writing with accuracy.

Brennan shared her reaction to the news, “I think teachers are going to be excited about it as well. Just the formation of letters and writing benchmarks does a great job of integrating reading and writing. And I think students will be excited to have the opportunity to use cursive”

Despite the increasing use of digital devices, Iowa educators emphasize the importance of balance between traditional handwriting skills and modern technology.

With laptops, and tablets replacing papers, the need to learn to keyboard has become more important.

Denney said, “Our kindergartners actually are keyboarding. Our TK students do keyboarding. We do it through the use of iPads. So it’s pretty touchscreen-based. If you think about that, the majority of our graduates will be able to get a touchscreen device, but they might not have a computer. So we’re looking at that as an accessibility feature, because we want all of our students to be able to be successful in a digital age, in a digital world,”

Educators say it’s important you not only see the letters but be able to produce the letters. Denney added, “It’s essential to learning. And people, when they write, they tend to learn better, they remember more, they retain more. And all of the brain research shows that there’s just a really important component that I think when we were going to more digital resources, we were missing out on some of those pieces.”

Denney said she also favors cursive when it comes to day-to-day note-taking, “I Take a lot of notes, and pretty much 95% of my notes are in cursive. So I love cursive.”

Nebraska and South Dakota are not required to teach cursive to students, but parents can work on it at home with their kids with printable worksheets available online.