[Teachers should focus] on the skills and knowledge that will impact student success in the future. These include printing and typing, but not cursive. As we have done with the abacus and the slide rule, it is time to retire the teaching of cursive. The writing is on the wall.

[T]he physical act of writing in cursive leads to increased comprehension and participation. Interestingly, a few years ago, the College Board found that students who wrote in cursive for the essay portion of the SAT scored slightly higher than those who printed, which experts believe is because the speed and efficiency of writing in cursive allowed the students to focus on the content of their essays.

We need to teach cursive to school children to preserve this history. E-mail messages are routinely deleted and not saved for posterity. Letters written in cursive tend to be saved and cherished. And let’s be honest, receiving a letter written in cursive is much more meaningful than one that is computer-generated.