Cursive: Vital or Obsolete?

A little cursive history

Cursive — an art, a skill, a necessary piece of knowledge…or is it obsolete? Once upon a time, it was expected that all students would acquire the skills to write and read cursive. It was the norm. The history of learning cursive dates back to when the quill was the only writing implement available. Quills are fragile, and cursive allowed for steady hand movements that protected the quill by not having to be lifted on and off the paper frequently. Aside from preserving the quill, ink would splatter more readily causing a mess. In 1827 the quill was slowly phased out with the invention and patent of the fountain pen — less fragile than a quill, but still having the potential to cause an inky mess. Later in the 19th century, the first ballpoint pen received its patent. This was a game changer.

The ballpoint pen was a turning point because it allowed people to write quicker and more legibly without having to continuously dip their pens in ink. This was especially important for students taking notes. Cursive remained a speedier and more formal handwriting method. However, while cursive was still a much more efficient way to produce letters, ballpoint pens didn’t require the speed of cursive writing, and it slowly began to fall out of favor.

the present day

At some point, an idea developed that children should start out their formal education by forming letters the way they read them in books. They could learn cursive later on, after block print had been established. We have now turned a corner with the access nearly all students have to word processing devices. Many schools have done away with cursive, moving students to the keyboard. But are these students missing out on an important skill?

In her extensively researched book (affiliate link) The Two-Digit Revolution, Celia Batan explores the ways in which cursive influences brain development and learning. She writes, “It shapes the executive functions of the brain for successful academic performance while enhancing creative and critical thinking practices required for meaningful interpretations of what we see.” She also points out some other problems cursive solve that may persist for students such as letter reversal and improper spacing.

one skill, different impacts

The year I taught in a third grade classroom I worked with a teacher who created cursive licenses for students as they completed a cursive program that culminated in a cursive test. The license was almost like a replica of a drivers license, complete with each student’s picture and signature. After it was laminated, students proudly put their cursive licenses in their wallets, right next to their bus passes and MetroCards. (We lived in New York City.) That license was a third grade rite of passage. For many students, cursive was a confidence builder. It gave them another skill they could feel proud of. But there were several students for whom cursive had an even greater impact.

Student #1: The Student with Illegible Handwriting

One of my students struggled immensely with his fine motor skills. His handwriting was evidence. Poor letter formation, letters too large for the lines, and improper spacing, all of which made his writing look illegible. Worst of all, he was embarrassed because he often struggled to read his own writing, and so did others. Handwriting was physically challenging for him even after years of occupational therapy. He dreaded the idea of learning cursive. Instead, he was in for quite the pleasant surprise. Cursive was not only easier, but his handwriting became more legible. And he enjoyed it. Having a swift and constant flow without having to repeatedly lift up his pencil made things a whole lot easier. This wasn’t the case for every student, but it made a difference for this boy.

Student #2: The Artist

Cursive is not just a means of communication. It’s a form of art. Many may not agree, but one of my very artistic students sure did! She saw this newfound skill as a way to enhance her art work.

Student #3: The Budding Historian

Over a school break, one of my students and his family went to Washington, DC. When he returned, he couldn’t stop raving about his trip and all of the sites and museums he visited. The highlight of it all? When he exclaimed, “I learned cursive just in time to read some old letters in one of the museums, and a little bit of the Constitution!”

STUDENT #4: The Traveler

Cursive is required for something as mundane as singing your name on identification. Sure, you can teach a child how to write and connect only the letters in their name. But it’s a splinter skill. A skill that can only be used when signing one’s name. The student is not actually learning how to write in cursive — how to form and connect letters, and to read what others write. One student was preparing for an international trip, and upon receiving her first passport, was thrilled to share that she was able to sign her name because “I just knew how to write the letters together!”

Student #5: The Pen Pal

Upon receiving her cursive license, a student was beaming from ear to ear. “You know, my grandmother will ONLY write me letters in cursive! Now, not only will I be able to read them, but I can write her back too!” The ability for this child to write and read in cursive, gave her membership to a special club in which she could bond with her grandmother in a way she had never been able to before.

Cursive enriched the lives of these students in important ways. While cursive was essential for practical reasons centuries ago, it is essential in different ways today. Do you teach or plan to teach cursive to a young learner?

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6 Ways to Build Background Knowledge

Background knowledge is a significant driving factor behind successful reading comprehension. Without it, readers struggle to make connections and grasp what they are reading. Students will come with different types of background knowledge, some more than others. This will be dependent upon many factors, such as:

  • How language-rich the student’s home environment is (the books read to that student and discussions with caregivers)

  • The access students have had to places such as museums, libraries, and other hands-on learning destinations to develop new knowledge and make connections

  • Extracurricular and enrichment activities

  • Opportunities for travel

  • Exposure to other cultures

The above are variables that we cannot control, so we focus on what we CAN control to build a sturdy framework of background knowledge. Here are my favorite ways for helping students build background knowledge regardless of their socioeconomic background:

  1. Read Alouds

    Read Alouds using picture books with authentic visual information is a powerful way to pack knowledge and information about a new topic.

  2. Field Trips

    Whether virtual or in-person, field trips are fantastic ways to learn about and engage in new topics. Since the pandemic, there is more opportunity now than ever to explore places, history, topics with a click of a mouse, and interact with guides and experts in the field.

  3. Guest Speakers

    Guest speakers can range from a child’s family member in a specific field of interest or relevance to someone in the local community.

  4. Show and Tell with Intention

    This isn’t the type of show and tell done in the early grades. This type of show and tell is done with a specific intention using an explicit outline to follow. The student would prepare an “expert presentation” about the item’s relevance, and facilitate a Q&A to further engage peers in discussion.

  5. Informational and Appropriate Media

    Whether it be a musical performance, famous speech, photographs or other piece of art, or short video, we can use the good that media does have to offer to connect our students with critical background knowledge.

  6. Sensory Experiences

    Engage students’ senses to connect more deeply with topics. Studying coconuts? Bring one in to explore. Learning about medicinal plants? Bring in an aloe plant!

Background knowledge should always be presented with rich, academic vocabulary that students become fluent in, both receptively and expressively.

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Bye-Bye 3 Cueing System

Studies show that 40% of kids (and that is being generous) will learn to read regardless of the method used. They are intuitive and will pick it up. Not bad, right? Until you begin to consider that means 60% of our children are vulnerable, at risk readers, setting them up for a lifelong struggle with reading.

There are many reasons why students fall behind in reading. What I see with upper elementary students is that many seem to be making headway (mostly through memorization and trained guessing) until about 2nd or 3rd grade when they fall behind and can’t catch up. The culprit is often a weak phonemic and phonological awareness foundation. (While there may be other factors at play, this is a very common one.) While we as educators cannot control all the factors that set up our kids to be successful readers, there are some things we CAN do (or avoid doing) when it comes to teaching them to become strong and confident independent readers, and it starts early on.

One of these steps is eliminating the The 3 Cueing System — the popular (albeit unfortunate) set of strategies that has long been used for emergent readers where the young reader is encouraged to figure out unknown words in a text by employing one or more of these strategies:

1. Looking at the picture

2. Looking at the first letter of the word

3. Skipping the word and deciding what word would make sense

Here's the big problem: While these strategies might help some students arrive at the word, it's a guessing game. But the student got the word, so what's the big deal, right? The student is reading. No, they’re not reading. They are using guessing strategies to navigate the text. But this reader is so proud of herself. Won't she just begin to pick up the patterns? Maybe... for those 40%, there's a good chance. However, the other 60% percent are treading in turbulent waters. Let's look at this from a few different angles and break down the big problem of this cueing system into smaller ones.

1. Sometimes, all three strategies, including the pictures flat out fail and put the student at risk for poor comprehension.

Pictures can be a vital tool for the reading experience, but pictures DO NOT help with decoding unfamiliar words. (For more on this, read my post on the power of pictures.)

Scenario: Student Carla is presented with the text: "The bug is on the twig." Carla gets to twig sees that the first letter starts with a t and sees a tree in the picture. Not surprisingly, she says tree. But, the word isn't tree. It's twig. It makes sense to Carla so she keeps reading. While both those words may make sense in context, they are different words with different meanings that will impact comprehension of the story. Carla is not truly grasping the meaning of the text.

2. One day, the pictures will go away and the body of the text on each page will be longer.

Pictures are abundant in texts for early readers, but they start to fade out as the pages fill up with larger bodies of text.

Scenario: Student Danny heavily relies on pictures for helping him to guess the word that he begins to use them as a crutch. He begins to shy away from reading anything without significant picture support. When he is put into a reading group with books with fewer pictures and heavier text, he tries to use the other cueing strategies, but it slows him down. He is frustrated. He hates reading.


3. This system will not help students with or those at risk for language-based learning disabilities.

Students with language-based learning disabilities need explicit instruction, not guessing strategies.

Scenario: Student Evie starts school with a language-based learning disability that has not yet been detected. She may initially stay under the radar long enough to be moved to the next grade and not be identified until she is so far behind she needs intervention. It is true that Evie, like most students with a learning disability, will likely need supplemental or differentiated instruction from her peers, but she might have been identified earlier or struggled less had she received explicit instruction within a structured literacy model that emphasizes phonics instruction, not guessing.

4. This system is discriminatory.

Take into consideration the English learners, or the student whose socio-economic background does not allow for the same cultural experiences to identify certain pictures. They are quickly put at a disadvantage.

Scenario: Student Teddy is trying to guess a word by looking at the picture. He can't get it. Then he looks at the first letter in the word. It's an f. He doesn't know it. Finally, he tries to figure out the word in context. He still can't get it. The word is ferry. Teddy may not live in a literacy-rich household; his parents may not be native-English speakers; he may not have had the same experiences as another child who has either taken a ride on a ferry or may have read another book with a parent who told them about ferries.

5. This system impacts fluency.

When students spend time analyzing the pictures to guess words, or think about what the word could be based on context, readers are taking too long of a pause from the text. As a result, their fluency is impacted. When fluency is impacted, so is comprehension.

Scenario: Student Hailey is reading and doesn't know a word. She looks at the picture, but she isn't really sure if the picture is giving the right answer. She takes more time to see if she can figure out the word in context. Still no luck. By the time she figures out this word she has no memory of what she read before those words and has to start the sentence again. But when she starts the sentence again and gets to that same stumper of a word, she can't remember what it is.

These are a few of the problems associated with this 3 Cueing System. Again, there are students who WILL persevere regardless of the teaching method. But many will struggle, and the bottom line is that the research not only doesn’t support this method, but advises against it. Why use a system that neglects the needs of 60% of students, especially when you might not know who these students are until it's is too late? So what's the answer? How do we move away from this system and implement a system that benefits 100% of students?

What do we do about it?

Unfortunately, for those of whom the 3 cueing system is deeply ingrained in their teaching philosophy or training, it can be hard to move away from it. The good news, is that there are small steps to be taken to integrate a more structured literacy approach to reading instruction. Right now, I'm going to focus on the vital practice of explicit phonics instruction. While it may be more time consuming, yielding slower results, these results -- I promise you -- will be longer lasting, more efficient, and will empower young readers to become stronger, more resilient, and more confident lifelong readers. THIS is the end goal.

Remember Teddy who couldn't read the word "ferry"? He used the strategies he was given. He looked at the picture, skipped reading and then tried to decide what might fit, and then looked at the first letter. He exhausted his strategies. Still, he just couldn't figure out the word. Teddy had never seen or heard of a ferry before. He also wasn't given explicit phonics instruction on r-controlled vowels or the y that makes the long e sound at the end of a multi-syllable word.

Now, let's put Teddy in a structured literacy classroom with an approach that follows the science where his teacher focuses on explicit, systematic phonics instruction before giving students books with words he is unable to decode. With targeted instruction with books that match the skills taught using controlled text, students practice their phonics skills, build fluency and stamina, and ultimately, yield more proficient comprehension outcomes. When Teddy’s teacher did give him a book with the word “ferry”, he still didn't know what this word was, but he could decode it. Teddy could then use the picture to make meaning of the word he decoded using phonics.

A systematic and explicit phonics instruction as a foundation gives students lasting tools that will support and guide them even when the cueing system does not. It hurts no one, and helps everyone.

It isn’t always easy to make the switch to a structured literacy model, especially if you come from an educational background in which this was not a supported approach. But that’s OK. When we know better, we can do better. No student should have to struggle because they are not being provided with the skills that research shows will best support them. And teachers, we don’t need to struggle if this is a newer concept. If you are new to the science of reading or looking for more information that puts an emphasis on explicit phonics instruction over the 3 Cueing System, here are some of my most recommended go-to (game-changing) reads that will help you help set your students up to become better readers and spellers:

  • Speech to Print by Louisa Moats

  • Reading for Life by Lyn Stone

  • The Logic of English by Denise Eide

  • Know Better, Do Better by David Liben and Meredith Liben

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