State lawmakers are calling for a cursive comeback as Kentucky auditions June Lefler reports.

Science says cursive can help with more than a signature.

In Oldham County, Republican has become the cursive crusader this legislative session.

She pointed to research that says Henry Dean can improve comprehension in all subjects.

So what they were seeing with the the pen to paper or even the stylus to the device was that the neurons, the connections in the brain just firing up and in in opening the brain's ability to receive knowledge as opposed to typing.

Cursive had its falling out more than a decade ago.

2010, the U.S. Department of Education introduced Common Core, which quickly spread across the country with the adoption.

The one thing two things actually they left out of Common Core and you can Google it still is the word cursive in the word handwriting.

It's just simply not in common course curriculum.

However, in 2017, our commissioner at the time for the Kentucky Department of Education brought cursive back into our standards for first, second and third grade, but on a minimal level and with no requirement to meet a level of proficiency.

And the result?

Most students who have graduated within the last decade have little to no ability to write or read cursive.

And, as I mentioned, may not even be able to sign their name.

Senate Bill 167 would mandate proficiency in cursive by the fifth grade.

The House Education Committee handed Lee signed off on the bill, but offered some caution about adding another expectation for kids and teachers.

Because I do agree that children need to put the pencil to paper, but then that time trade off of I've attempted to teach cursive to someone else and then kind of backed off to just try to teach them how to sign their name in order to do it right.

It has to be systematic and intentional, and that would take time.

And so I need to look into the time trade offs for that versus all of the other things that we're measured on for accountability.

The committee also advanced a change to alternative teacher certifications.

These programs get new teachers in the classroom sooner.

A lot of our schools right now currently have someone that maybe have a bachelor's degree or even a master's degree in a particular area, and they're coming from a professional setting.

For example, let's say we have a somebody that works at Dow Chemical.

We would definitely want that person teaching chemistry to our high school students.

They're, well, overqualified.

So this just gives them the ability to enroll in a program to gain that certified station and to join our ranks.

Senate Bill 265 would get these people in the classroom before they even start taking college courses in education.

Currently, people seeking this kind of certification have to have half of their coursework completed before they can start teaching.

For Kentucky edition of June Lefler.

Alternative routes to certification are open to college professors, professionals and veterans hoping to teach in Kentucky's public schools.