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Even though Marie Hornback is a calligrapher who teaches cursive, she doesn’t think a simple handwritten thank-you note should be considered a work of art.

And yet, in today’s world, it is. Hornback said a friend recently told her they’ve saved every thank-you note she’s ever sent them, and Hornback admits she does the same.

“A typewritten love letter or an emailed love letter will never hold that emotional electricity that is conveyed with someone’s hand on a piece of paper with a pen,” Hornback said.

But cursive started to disappear from elementary school classrooms about 15 years ago, when education shifted to national Common Core standards that emphasized typing. Kids who missed out on lessons that used to be a rite of passage as normal as braces or cheesing for a driver’s license photo are now college students who sometimes can’t read or write cursive. Washington College in Kent County cited vanishing cursive instruction when announcing it would be replacing its school logo, which since 2013 had been George Washington’s signature.

Hornback said it’s a shame that some won’t be able to read historic documents in their original forms. “Let’s not go back to the Dark Ages where people had to have things read to them because they couldn’t read them,” she added.

Like Hornback, plenty of people have an emotional attachment to the art of handwriting — and cursive in particular. But handwriting teachers and researchers argue that’s not the only reason to preserve it. The connecting nature of cursive can help with memorization and speed, and it can even improve reading and spelling.

In Maryland, students are not required to learn or write in cursive. Most school districts introduce students to cursive around second or third grade but then vary on whether students must continue to use it, said Raven Hill, a spokesperson for the state education department, in an email.

Baltimore and Howard counties teach cursive in the second grade. Anne Arundel County kicks it off in third. Baltimore City takes a similar approach to the state. While some teachers can and do teach cursive, they don’t have to.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before learning cursive, kids need a foundation in manuscript, or print. Kids should get ready for that in pre-K or kindergarten — by learning to hold a pencil or drawing circles, for example — and practice handwriting in first and second grades.

The benefit isn’t just neat handwriting, said Virginia Berninger, who has researched connections between handwriting and the brain. When kids learn to write letters, they can better spot them in words, which helps them pick up reading. That’s an area Maryland students struggle in.

And when kids take handwritten notes during lectures, they can better process information in the moment by circling or starring words and drawing arrows between connected concepts.

Once kids start learning, they need to keep practicing, said Hornback, who teaches cursive at a charter school in northern Colorado.

“It’s unfair to a child just to teach them for one semester, or even a school year, and then put it on the back burner and expect them to improve,” Hornback said. “They’ll just fall back into poor habits.”

At Archdiocese of Baltimore Catholic schools, cursive is alive and well. Alicia Rowan, a reading specialist at Immaculate Conception School, said cursive instruction starts after Christmas in second grade and students are expected to use it on handwritten assignments. They’re also encouraged to take cursive notes because they help kids grasp and remember concepts.

The better memory promoted by such note-taking can lead to better performance on the SAT and in college courses, said Lauren Mooney Bear, the immediate past president of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation and the chairperson of its Campaign for Cursive. Rowan said, because each letter in cursive is formed differently, it can help students who struggle with “letter reversal,” such as confusing a d for a b.

“The kids who are learning it get an edge,” Mooney Bear said.

There’s been an uptick in states, including Iowa and California, reintroducing cursive to their curriculum. It’s required in Mississippi, where Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Carey Wright hails from, though Hill, with the education department, said Wright has no position on mandating it in Maryland.

About 10 years ago, Berninger followed a group of Seattle students from fourth through seventh grades to evaluate their printing, cursive and typing skills, she said. She found cursive had two special advantages over printing and even typing: better spelling and faster composing. Both trace to how cursive connects strokes, allowing students to get ideas down faster and to link letters into word units, which boosts spelling abilities.

“Our research supported that, in the information age, we want to teach children to be hybrid writers where they have multiple ways of producing letters by hand, be it manuscript, cursive or touch typing on a keyboard,” Berninger said. “And there’s really advantages to each, depending on the developmental stage of the child.”

Although cursive has gotten a reputation for mindless repetition, Hornback said everyone develops their own style. By the time her students reach sixth grade, they’re learning to “put their own personality into it a little bit while still maintaining a nice quality and legibility.”

And, although cursive takes time to teach, experts say it doesn’t have to be prolonged or monotonous. In Howard County, teachers are told to spend about 30 minutes a week on handwriting. Archdiocese third graders master cursive after spending roughly 10 minutes a day on it.

Although the state is focused on getting all of its kids reading by the end of third grade, Berninger wants to see a parallel focus on handwriting instruction.

“I am keenly aware that writing has been left behind and ignored,” Berninger said.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.