Nearly 40 years later, the admonishments of my second-grade teacher at Thomas Jefferson Elementary in Anaheim still ring in my ears. “Messy! Messy!” I was a precocious 8-year-old, placed in a ...

As the new school year begins, all those little hands in elementary school are once again at the center of a fierce debate: Is cursive writing a skill that’s still worth teaching, or an out-of-date ...

In an age where screens dominate classrooms and workplaces, handwriting might seem like a relic of the past. But research shows that putting pen to paper plays a crucial role in literacy development. ...

To the editor: As a 77-year-old who won my school’s penmanship competition in fourth grade, I’m pretty happy that California kids will be learning cursive handwriting. (“Learning cursive in school, ...

Instruction on cursive is already mandated by the state for grades three and four, but the new law — a result of Assembly Bill 446, which Newsom signed on Oct. 13 — will broaden instruction to grades ...

Before smartphone keyboards, before laptops, PCs and typewriters, before the printing press, there was cursive handwriting. But for many members of generations growing up with electronic devices, ...

Is learning cursive writing essential for developing young minds, or is it an outdated skill being championed by nostalgic policymakers? The question sparked a lively and personal debate on a recent ...

This past summer, Tennessee state Rep. Sheila Butt got a call from a mother who said she wanted to talk about her son, a junior in high school. The woman explained that her son’s history teacher was ...

Recently, my 8-year-old son received a birthday card from his grandmother. He opened the card, looked at it and said, “I can’t read cursive yet.” Then he handed it to me to read. If you have a child ...

How badly does 15 minutes a day for one third-grade semester impact other subjects? Not much. Why all the controversy? My third-graders loved to practice handwriting because I always wrote short, ...

Tyara Brooks teaches her fourth-grade students how to write in cursive at Longfellow Elementary School in Pasadena. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) “Messy! Messy!” Nearly 40 years later, the ...