Tennessee dusts off cursive writing, creates new standards for it

Kids today might text more than they hold a pen, but the state’s department of education is moving toward standards that would reinvigorate the teaching of cursive handwriting.

The state board of education preliminarily approved the department’s standards, which has students beginning to learn cursive in the second grade, and writing legibly in cursive in the fourth grade, at a meeting last week.

Last year, the state board of education passed a policy that cursive must be taught in Tennessee schools. The new standards are a response to that policy.

The state’s written language standards won’t be totally old school, though. They also stipulate that students learn to write in print and type on a keyboard, and, by the fourth grade, use the internet to publish their own writing.

You can see the proposed standards here. The board will take a final vote on them in October.