“I can’t read this kind of writing,” my grandson says, handing the recipe card back to me.
He’s a smart kid, my grandson. But he can’t read the directions for the turkey stuffing we’re making. His aunt wrote them by hand. And in cursive.
“I need help reading cursive, too,” another grandson says. “After all, I see it only once a year—in the birthday card I get from Great-grandpa.
That’s my dad. He systematically and faithfully writes a card for each of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and all the spouses they’ve grafted into the family. This is 79 cards per year. And all in cursive, except for preschoolers. He prints for them.
The reading would be easier if my mom wrote the cards. She learned cursive in Pennsylvania, where penmanship was taught the right way. Not in Maryland where my dad went to school. His scrawl stands as her evidence of that state’s inferior instruction.
But even my mom’s flowing script gives her great-grandkids trouble. And they are not alone. Only about half of Americans born after 1990 can read cursive.
This illiteracy, however, is changing. In 2016, Arizona led the way, requiring cursive writing instruction by the end of fifth grade. Since then, about half of US states have followed.
And no wonder! Research shows the benefits. Cursive writing improves fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. But it does more. It gets the entire brain working—neurological pathways activate, the right side of the brain lights up, and synapses connect.
Even in college, cursive helps. Researchers have found that notetaking in cursive helps students recall more information than when they take notes by printing or on a laptop. It’s as if cursive writing produces not only a flow of words on paper, but also a flow of thoughts in the brain.
A flow my grandkids miss when they can’t read an aunt’s recipe or their great-grandpa’s birthday message.
But there’s hope. At this year’s end, my dad will have written 79 cards. Next year the number will grow. The great-grands keep coming. And starting school. And the most recent batches are learning cursive.
Hopefully, they’ll learn fast enough to read my dad’s birthday cards before they stop coming.
Apple to Apple 