Concerns over cursive: Mom tells school board handwriting doesn't make the grade
Concerns over students not knowing how to form signatures has prompted one local group to question whether the state’s cursive requirement is worth the paper it’s written on.
Julie Anderson, chairwoman of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, told the board during the May 5 public comment period that students would benefit from more emphasis on cursive writing, which is required to be taught to North Carolina elementary students.
“Maybe we’re putting too much emphasis on technology,” Anderson said in an interview. “We need to get back to basics.”
A growing number of states seem to share that sentiment. Over a little less than a decade, the number of states requiring cursive to be part of the curriculum has grown from 14 to 25.
Pitt County Schools Assistant Superintendent Kamara Roach told the Board of Education May 19 that legislation approved in 2017 instructs the state’s public schools to emphasize cursive instruction in grades three through five. Changes in the standard course of study took effect in the 2018-19 school year.
“What it says actually is by the end of fifth grade, a student must create a readable document in legible cursive writing,” said Roach, who serves as chief academic officer for the school district. “There is not a state assessment for writing.”
Her report to the board came at the request of District 9 representative Benjie Forrest. After hearing Anderson’s comments on May 5, he asked to have an explanation of the district’s cursive writing instruction added to the next discussion agenda.
At the board’s May 19 work session, 3-5 English Language Arts District Specialist Ashton Venters showed the board the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum workbook that the school district began using with third-graders in 2019. Venters said the resource guide provides 10 to 15 minutes of daily instruction, and teachers maintain writing portfolios that include cursive samples to show how students’ skills are progressing.
Forrest said he was glad to see tangible resources devoted to cursive instruction.
“I will tell you from the public perspective, at least from the public that I hear from, they don’t see a lot of tangible,” he said. “They don’t see a lot of portfolios, and they see kids that don’t know how to write cursive. So somewhere in there, there’s got to be some kind of disconnect.”
District 2 representative Amy Cole said she never saw the cursive writing resource when her child was in elementary school in 2019.
“My son would have been a third-grader that year, my youngest, and he does not know how to write cursive at all,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s because of COVID, but I never saw it.”
District 7 representative Kelly Weaver said she has seen multiple examples of cursive writing from her children’s school, citing that individual schools take different approaches to instruction.
State law also does not require that a certain number of instructional hours be devoted to cursive instruction, resulting in wide variations in how districts address the subject. The State Board of Education and the Department of Public Instruction make an annual report to the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee to show how school districts comply with regulations on teaching cursive and multiplication tables. Some districts report monthly instruction in cursive writing, while others report weekly or even daily lessons.
According to the 2024 report, Pitt County Schools provided monthly instruction in cursive. This year’s report indicated that instruction is being offered weekly.