Cursive lessons should be mandatory in NJ schools, says State Assembly Speaker

Jack McLoone | Asbury Park Press

Show Caption Hide Caption This Holmdel school is anything but typical The New School in Holmdel is celebrating fifty years of educating.

Cursive, at least anecdotally, is dying. Between mandatory lessons being dropped from the Common Core in 2010 and the continued advancement of technology making even a vague scrawl for credit cards rarer and rarer — let alone handwriting a letter — it comes up sparingly in day-to-day life.

But a bill proposed by Assemblywoman Angela McKnight, D-Hudson, is hoping to guarantee students still learn how to write and read in cursive by requiring that schools add cursive (back) to the elementary school curriculum. And she has now received an influential vote of confidence: State Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex.

Friday morning, on his monthly radio show, "Speak to the Speaker" on 1450 WTCT, he called the proposed bill a "great idea."

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The bill, A6010, introduced on November 26, has yet to be scheduled for a vote, but would be fast-acting: it would go into effect the following school year, as currently written. While some school districts, such as Coughlin's hometown of Woodbridge, still teach cursive, it would make it mandatory.

Coughlin supported the bill for utilitarian reasons, saying, "You may not have your computer with you, or your phone dies. Now you can write in cursive.”

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According to a statement from McKnight, there is research that supports that learning cursive can help children across the board with their "cognitive, motor and literacy skills, and may help students with learning disabilities like dyslexia read and write with greater ease."

She, too, cited the practicality of cursive writing, calling it "a vital skill [children] will need for the rest of their lives."

Jack McLoone is technically a digital producer, but also writes from time to time about trending topics. He’s new here, so please be nice. Contact him at jmcloone@gannett.com, 732-643-4230 or @jfmclooney on Twitter.

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