This B.C. teacher is teaching cursive

This B.C. teacher is teaching cursive — and helping students win national handwriting awards

Teresa Keenan says cursive helps kids with literacy, memory

Anyone of a certain age can remember finally grasping the concept of printing letters, only to have the bomb of cursive writing dropped onto your desk not long after.

For some, cursive was a way of improving on already impeccable handwriting, for others, it was another headache — and a skill they’d avoid as much as possible in the future.

As keyboards were introduced, like the one this story is being typed on, the desire to learn cursive and even printing became less and less.

But Teresa Keenan, who teaches first and second grade at Hume Elementary in Nelson, B.C., wasn’t about to give up on cursive.

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She brought the skill into the classroom for younger children, hoping it would teach them lessons beyond beautiful handwriting.

“I saw a lot of great success,” she said.

Keenan was so successful, in fact, a group of 100 students spanning five classrooms and grade levels just competed in a North American cursive contest, called Cursive is Cool, and won 15 of the 42 awards.

Keenan spoke with CBC’s Daybreak South host Chris Walker about her passion for cursive writing.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why is learning cursive so important?

I think it encourages children to express themselves through their hand. And as young learners, writing can be really difficult. So being able to learn how to use a pen or pencil with the flowing action of cursive just opens up so much brain development and opportunities for learning for students.

What was your own experience learning cursive like?

I grew up in the late 80s, early 90s through my elementary years and I learned cursive in third grade. I had a grandmother who was a teacher, so we practised cursive a lot. It was a bit of a rite of passage through my elementary school. I grew up just outside Vancouver. You learned how to print in Grade 1 and 2 and then you started learning cursive in Grade 3, 4, 5 and it carried on. We were always really excited to be able to take that step to learning how to do cursive writing.

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My grandmother, Cecelia, really instilled a love of handwriting, and she had beautiful penmanship that I tried to emulate and still do.

Now you're a teacher and you're teaching kids cursive. How did you get your students involved in this competition?

I was teaching kindergarten and I was noticing a lot of reluctance holding a pencil with some of the children. They were really tiring. They didn't like to do the pencil work that we were introducing. I taught kindergarten for about seven years and when I moved to Grade 1 and Grade 2, I thought, you know, I'm going to try cursive writing right from the beginning. Often they come with different techniques from home and it's really hard to break some habits sometimes when they've learned certain ways. So I just thought I will start right from the beginning with everyone and I'll teach cursive, starting with them at six years old.

Should kids know how to read and write in cursive?

The students found it calming. They found it much easier. They were tired much less easy than when they were doing print because you don't have to lift your pencil up so much, it doesn't tire your hand and your arm. I had a lot of success, not only with just the children enjoying it, but also seeing that their spatial awareness improved. I found that they were picking up our literacy lessons in reading and spelling. I just saw an overall improvement in academics.

Digital contracts are the norm today. Is there still power in a written signature?

I shared it with my colleagues and, and they started to buy in as well. And it's just grown from there, which is wonderful. And Hume School has a legacy of cursive writing. We just celebrated 100 years in 2023. When we were finding things for the centennial, our principal at the time found this beautiful framed certificate from 1924 that the Grade 6 class at the time had won for their penmanship. So it's an old tradition. I don't wanna say I brought it back. I just reminded everyone that it's an excellent way to learn, and then we should be using it more.

This competition was a national contest, and 15 out of the 42 awards were won by students at your school. How are the kids feeling about that?

We have been trying to keep it under wraps. The parents have heard about it, but we didn't make a big fuss of it until we got the awards. And Lauren Mooney Bear, who is the chair of the Cursive is Cool contest, is coming up from the U.S. tomorrow and hand delivering our awards. So we put together an assembly here at the year end to honour the kids. So we're keeping it a bit under wraps and surprising them with their awards and the recognition that they deserve.

Is there research that shows that writing cursive as being calming and improving their other academics? What do we know about that?

There is a lot of educational press coming out about cursive right now, a lot of neuroscience that supports any writing by hand. I believe cursive is great because of the flowing, connectivity of the writing, which I understand kind of wakes up both hemispheres of the brain.

I'm not a neuroscientist, I teach Grade 1, but that's what I understand for that type of brain development. It improves memory. It supports retention of information. All of those things really are supported by writing by hand and we are starting to see a move towards that.

Ontario a few years back rewrote their curriculum and actually mandated cursive to be taught in their schools. And what I have read out of the U.S. is that half the states are also mandating teaching cursive, and encouraging young learners, six- and seven-year-olds, to be taught that.

With files from Courtney Dickson and Daybreak South