California signs cursive writing into law – what are the brain benefits?

From the start of 2024, the state of California reinstated the requirement that first through sixth graders in public schools learn to write in cursive.

The handwriting technique stopped being taught in the Golden State in 2010, but now California re-joins nearly two dozen US states that have made cursive education mandatory in some form. While cursive – also known as joined italics – was momentarily thought of as a dying art in the US, the move by California has reignited debates in both educational and scientific circles about the real value of learning this writing style, the global implications of letting it go and questions about its potential brain benefits.

California-based neuroscientist Claudia Aguirre says "more and more neuroscience research is supporting the idea that writing out letters in cursive, especially in comparison to typewriting, can activate specific neural pathways that facilitate and optimise overall learning and language development."

Kelsey Voltz-Poremba, assistant professor of occupational therapy at the University of Pittsburgh, adds that young children may even find cursive easier to learn and replicate. "When handwriting is more autonomous for a child, it allows them to put more cognitive energy towards more advanced visual-motor skills and have better learning outcomes," she says.

There are a lot of reasons why cursive hasn't been mandated by all schools. While the benefits of manual handwriting are clear, the literature differs on whether cursive specifically is better than print for child development. Karin James, professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University, works with four-to-six-year-olds in her research, which focuses on print over cursive. Her research found that learning letters through writing by hand activates networks in the brain that are not activated by typing on a keyboard, including an area known to play a role in reading. Other research by Virginia Berninger, a professor in educational psychology at the University of Washington, has also shown that cursive, print writing and typing use related but different brain functions. Yet, cursive instruction for very young pupils is becoming more rare.

Also, cursive instruction in the US isn’t standardised across all school districts or even across instructors. The inconsistency presents a unique challenge for teachers. "Nearly two dozen states have added a requirement for cursive handwriting instruction for grades three to five into their state educational standards," says Kathleen S. Wright, the founder and executive director of The Handwriting Collaborative, an educational organization that teaches best-practice approaches to classroom handwriting instruction. "However, this is not a requirement that is enforced or funded, so instruction in all forms of handwriting is not consistently addressed."

California's teachers will have to figure out how best to integrate cursive into classrooms that didn't previously require it, but any pivot away from screens could be beneficial.

"In our community-based handwriting program for school-aged youth at the University of Pittsburgh, we consistently have parents complaining their child is struggling in school and that they haven't been taught how to write because they mostly use their computer or [a] similar device," says Voltz-Poremba. The movements needed for typing are the same no matter what letter is being typed, she says, so children are robbed of the chance to develop sensory processing skills that come from forming and understanding letters. Perhaps the boomerang is turning back in the other direction simply because of the time we live in: post-pandemic, many children use a laptop or tablet for schoolwork, but a return to in-person classes shows that many US students display an over-reliance on screens.

Although the link between penmanship and reading achievement is not necessarily causal, some educators fear that letting go of cursive could spell a US backslide in educational outcomes. One small study by Italian researchers found that teaching cursive to pupils in the first year of primary school could improve their reading skills.

Canada also tried to do away with cursive, only to resurrect it in 2023. Last year, the Ontario Ministry of Education reinstated its cursive handwriting instruction requirement. Educators remain curious about any lessons Ontario has learned about how best to give that instruction, how long lessons should last and how frequently practise should be introduced.

Comparing the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)’s 2022 global rankings for reading achievement of 15 year olds by country, the US was ninth. American students trailed behind Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) powerhouses such as Singapore, which was in the top spot, and Japan at number three.

Cursive writing is still widely taught in Western Europe. Spain, Italy, Portugal, and France have held onto the tradition. And in the UK, joined-up handwriting is still taught in English classrooms. The UK government’s Ofsted research review states that "the national curriculum requires children to learn unjoined handwriting before they 'start using some of the diagonal and horizontal strokes that are needed to join letters'".

Meanwhile, Switzerland only teaches basic script and, in 2016, Finland removed cursive handwriting from its schools too. With no global precedent one way or the other, school districts and ministries of education around the world vary widely from region to region.

For all the unknowns, the evidence suggests that there is no downside to learning cursive. Research into the differences between handwriting vs. typing shows that it is still beneficial to write with pen and paper – but the greatest benefits (to memory and learning words, for example) are tied to the act of writing itself, not cursive over print.

The only possible drawback is in perception. Handwriting is all too often pitted against keyboarding as a zero-sum game, which is not a fair proposition. Much like the debate over how much time kids need at recess, educators don't have to completely discontinue one learning activity in favour of an equally important one. Instead, Voltz-Poremba expounds a glass-half-full approach. "It's important to find a balance to ensure today's youth are prepared with the skills that are gained without the use of technology," she says.

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