Twelve-year-old Sandi Chandee wants to be a doctor when she grows up. But that’s not why she memorized one of the longest medical terms in the English language:
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
In Sherisse Kenerson’s after-school classroom, Sandi takes out a piece of paper and fills up a whole line to spell the word that describes a type of lung disease. The word allows her to practice cursive — her new favorite method of writing.
When she becomes a doctor, Sandi, who signs her cursive autograph with a heart above the i, is determined to have a perfect signature.
Twelve-year-old Halle O’Brien, Sandi’s cursive partner-in-crime, agrees.
“I prefer writing in cursive,” Halle said.
The pair are proud members of the Holmes Middle School cursive club in Virginia. Cursive has been on the upswing for years now. More than two dozen states now require cursive instruction in schools after the 2010 Common Core standards omitted the skill.
Kenerson, a multilingual teacher at Holmes, started the middle school club when students couldn’t read her writing on the board. They just stared at her blankly, she said.
“I realized they didn’t know how to write or read in cursive,” Kenerson said. For an educator who firmly believes that quotes deserve to be written in cursive, and has a new one on her board each month, Kenerson wanted to give students a chance to understand the magic of the loopy writing.
Halle O’Brien writes during after-school cursive club, held by teacher Sherisse Kenerson, at Holmes Middle School in Alexandria, Va. (Anna Rose Layden for NPR)
The club exploded in popularity this past winter, with local news stations and the Washington Post crediting it for “keeping cursive alive.” Since then, Kenerson has been racking her brain trying to figure out why it has drawn so much attention.
She has received fan mail from retirees and teachers (written in cursive, of course). She has heard from people in Idaho, Pennsylvania and Florida. She has even had Zoom calls with educators in Oklahoma and Maryland to explain how she runs the club.
“I’m flabbergasted,” Kenerson said. “I’m just going along with the ride.”
She decided that cursive is a way to hold on to the past, and many people are not ready to let it go.
Kenerson’s after-school club is a local example of a nationwide trend — cursive handwriting is back in many classrooms across the country. Teachers and legislators credit the resurgence to nostalgia and some evidence of educational benefits. But surprisingly, the curves and swoops are contentious among experts, and some argue that cursive does not add any real value for students, especially in the age of artificial intelligence.
“I have seen no evidence that cursive brings any particular cognitive or learning benefit beyond that brought by hand printing,” wrote Mark Warschauer, a professor of education at the University of California, Irvine, in an email to NPR. He noted that the cognitive benefits of young students writing by hand in general are already well established.
Warschauer, who founded the UC Irvine Digital Learning Lab, opposes teaching cursive in schools because of the “waste of time and effort” when print handwriting, voice-to-text applications, and keyboards are easily accessible to students.
Much of the cursive debate centers around time in the classroom. Should educators spend precious minutes teaching another way to write on paper when technology is so prevalent?
Shawn Datchuk, a professor of special education at the University of Iowa, said the answer does not have to be one or the other. In his college classroom, he sees students increasingly using tablets and a stylus to take notes.
“What that means is that as a country, we likely need to help our students become multi-modal,” Datchuk said. They need to not only be able to handwrite using print, but also use cursive, type, and interact with technology, he said.
Technology is not a fix-all for students, though, he said.
“One of the dirty secrets behind spell checker and artificial intelligence is that you still need to be able to spell in order to use those well,” Datchuk said.
He and a team of researchers compiled the known studies on cursive teaching. Some studies used antiquated technology like ink wells and quill tips, so they were cut. A few of the others were missing details on how the instruction was implemented. With those caveats, Datchuk said, preliminary evidence shows cursive writing could improve spelling.
Datchuk said the “special sauce” for cursive is that students have to pay closer attention to how letters connect when they write.
Kenerson, the cursive club’s founder, said she’s seen anecdotal evidence that cursive helps students with dyslexia. Sharon Quirk-Silva, a California assemblymember who introduced the cursive bill in the state, said she’s also heard anecdotal evidence that cursive can be therapeutic for students with special needs.
Since Quirk-Silva’s 2023 cursive mandate, she said the reception from constituents has been overwhelmingly positive.
Datchuk, the University of Iowa professor, said he receives a constant stream of emails from people asking about cursive, but his reason for studying the technique was personal — his 8-year-old son, who is reading Harry Potter, still passes his grandmother’s birthday cards to his dad to read.
“That brings up the larger generational divide that’s probably happened not only with my sons, but with kids and young adults across the United States who just never received instruction in cursive,” Datchuk, a former elementary school teacher, said.
Antonio Benavides, an 11-year-old in Kenerson’s cursive club, is an example of that divide. His dad heard about the club and immediately sent Antonio.
Now, he sticks his tongue out and stares intently at the loops in front of him. He enjoys practicing the curves, and he said his normally sprawling print penmanship has improved.
“I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me, cursive club, what do I need that for?'” Benavides remembered telling his dad. But now, “Yeah, I like it,” he said.
When there’s a moment of silence as the students practice their i’s and t’s, Antonio whispers, “I love that sound.”
“The sound of a pencil when it’s silent is just so nice,” he explained.
Steve Graham, the Regents Professor at Arizona State University’s College for Teaching and Learning Innovation, argues that despite the media attention, cursive never really went anywhere. Graham, who has authored numerous books about writing, said he has been hearing about the “death of handwriting or the death of cursive” for about 50 years. At one point, his responses to questions from reporters became “snarky,” he said.
“I’d say, ‘Well, damn, I didn’t hear it was buried,'” Graham said. “Can you tell me where? I’d like to visit the grave.”
Graham is ambivalent about whether cursive or print is a more effective tool for students. He said he thinks the fixation on cursive is an adult phenomenon.
“I’m often amazed at how much attention it gets,” Graham said. With more studies, Graham said he thinks the differences in benefits between the two types of handwriting will be insignificant. He said what’s more important is spending the time to teach kids to write.
Back in Kenerson’s cursive club, 11-year-old Conrad Thompson said she’s the only student in her history class who can read her teacher’s huge Declaration of Independence printout. It makes her proud.
“Hopefully, one day, me and my family will get to go see it in person,” Conrad said.
As for Sandi and Halle, the pair have no doubts about their newfound skill.
“Will you be back next week?” Halle asked Sandi about the after-school club.
“Of course I will,” Sandi responded.
Transcript:
(SOUNDBITE OF CHIMES RINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Good afternoon.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Open your books. It’s time for Cursive Club.
SHERISSE KENERSON: And down. And then lower these. All right, and so now, you can officially write a word.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
That is Sherisse Kenerson, a middle school teacher who runs the club in Alexandria, Virginia.
KENERSON: What are the two rules when it comes to cursive?
KELLY: Two rules, OK. One of them has got to be the biggie – you don’t lift your pencil from the page. Don’t pick it up.
CHANG: Ooh, Mary Louise, it sounds like you learned cursive in school.
KELLY: Of course.
CHANG: (Laughter) Well, the skill was booted out of most public schools when the Common Core Standards in 2010 did not recommend teaching it.
KELLY: And it is not back just for some after-school fun. More than two dozen states have introduced cursive back into their classroom.
KENERSON: Can I get another person to tell me the second rule? Yes.
CONRAD THOMPSON: Always tilt your paper or board, depending on which hand you use.
KENERSON: Exactly.
CHANG: That is Conrad Thompson (ph). She’s 11 and a total pro and says Cursive Club is the most fun after-school option. She now has a special skill for her history class, reading the Declaration of Independence.
CONRAD: My teacher, Mr. Rosen, has this huge copy, and I read it one time. I don’t think anyone in my class can read a cursive except me.
KELLY: Love it. Now, she’s not the only one, though, who is excited about cursive.
SANDI CHANDEE: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
KELLY: Across the classroom, that is 12-year-old Sandi Chandee (ph). She is using her cursive to write one of the longest words in the English language.
CHANG: Wait, wait, wait. I need to hear that word again.
SANDI: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, again.
CHANG: (Laughter) OK, got it.
KELLY: That is impressive skill.
CHANG: But, you know, some experts are more skeptical of jumping on the cursive train, like Steve Graham, a professor at Arizona State University. He has written many books about handwriting.
KELLY: He says the most important thing is kids just need to learn how to write, whether it’s cursive or print – less important.
STEVE GRAHAM: One of these forms needs to be taught. I personally don’t care which one.
KELLY: In fact, he is a little sick of the cursive hoopla.
GRAHAM: This is more a phenomena – an adult phenomena – you know, a feeling of something lost.
CHANG: But other educators like Shawn Datchuk, a professor of Special Education at the University of Iowa, says 2026 is a different learning environment, one where students need to learn loads of different communication methods.
SHAWN DATCHUK: As a country, we likely need to help our students become multimodal.
KELLY: Multimodal – Datchuk says multimodal means this generation needs to know how to write in cursive and use a computer and use AI, and the list goes on.
CHANG: And on and on. The students in Mrs. Kenerson’s Cursive Club certainly are becoming multimodal, like Antonio Benavides (ph). His dad made him go to Cursive Club.
ANTONIO BENAVIDES: I’m like, are you kidding me, Cursive Club? What do I need that for?
CHANG: But now…
ANTONIO: Yeah. OK, I like it.
KENERSON: When you go up, go back. And when you’re coming back up, then that’s when you plan to do your hoop.
ANTONIO: Oh. You go…
KENERSON: So look. Up, go back down. When you come up here, you do your hoop. Great job.
KELLY: And Mrs. Kenerson’s red apple candy jar – always sure to sweeten the deal.
ANTONIO: I need to find the best one. OK, quick, the Jolly Ranchers.
CHANG: Maybe at the end of the day, kids just need to get bribed with candy.
KELLY: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF DAFT PUNK SONG, “INSTANT CRUSH”)
