In the United States, cursive handwriting instruction is provided to

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

children in some schools, with

cursive Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionalit ...

taught alongside standard handwriting. Due to multiple factors including stylistic choices, and technological advancement, the use of cursive has quickly declined since the start of the 21st century. Cursive has traditionally been used as a way of signing one's name, a signature.

No Child Left Behind

When the

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was a U.S. Act of Congress that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; it included Title I provisions applying to disadvantaged students. It supported standards-based educatio ...

was implemented, several changes were made to the classroom curriculum. One of those changes, which has been frequently altered, is the requirement for cursive handwriting. The U.S. Department of Education has provided updates of the changes as they are implemented by school systems. The general curriculum states that by 5th grade, students should use cursive exclusively.

Recent events

Many United States schools have removed cursive handwriting instruction from their curriculum. When the system was revisited after the skill was taken out of the core requirements, school therapists reported that some students struggled with manuscript but excelled in cursive writing. Many schools have adopted keyboarding as an alternative to cursive handwriting instruction. In a 2022 article in '' The Atlantic'', historian and former Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust claimed that Gen Z never learned to read and write cursive.

References

Education in the United States by subject {{US-edu-stub