Another change in Kentucky school districts this year is a mandate for students to learn cursive writing.

Senate Bill 167 passed last year requiring students to be proficient in cursive writing by the time they graduate elementary school.

Senator Lindsey Tischler was a sponsor of this legislation.

Kristi Dutton also sat down with her to discuss what parents need to know about this change.

Joining us now is Senator Lindsey Tickner, and she sponsored a bill requiring cursive writing to be taught in elementary schools.

So, Senator, why was this important to you?

Well, it's really interesting.

This came to my attention.

We were doing a tour of the history museum and went back and looked at some of the archives and saw the Kentucky Constitution, the original version laid out on the table, you know, just a beautiful document.

And there were some other people on the tour with me and a little high schooler who's probably 15, 16 years old maybe.

I said, I bet you can't even read that.

He said, I don't even know how to sign my name.

Oh.

And I thought, oh, my gosh, have we fallen so far away from that basic skill that kids aren't even learning how to sign their name?

And so that brought me back the next morning to we were in session at the time and I called the bill drafter.

I said, we need to get cursive back.

Here's how we need to do it.

And and thankfully, it was grabbed up in the session kind of at the last minute and was able to get passed.

And I just think cursive is such a foundational skill.

And as I started to do more research, I was able to discover how beneficial cursive is in so many ways.

It helps with comprehension, obviously.

It helps kids learn how to read, helps them learn how to spell.

It helps with fine motor skills and it helps build neural pathways in the brain in order to help them memorize content.

And it is fascinating how much cursive helps, and it's just that continuous motion of continuity that's strengthening the brain and those neural pathways.

And it helps with so many things because a lot of people would say now kids are typing and using computers and phones and not putting pen to paper as much.

So talk a little more about these benefits, the fine motor skills.

Talk a little more about that.

Well, you think about just just learning to hold a pencil and what that does just for your muscles.

When you teach a kid how to tie their shoe.

Right.

All those skills, all those muscles, just fine motor skills of being able to do something that is takes a lot of of attention.

You're making your brain connect with those muscles in your hand to be able to make those motions.

And it strengthens your brain and it builds it builds that that pathway.

So when you look at a typing and there's actually been a study on this in 2020, there was a really interesting study and it looked at the brain and compared by imaging, it compared what's going on in the brain when they're typing in, what's going on, when they're actually pen on paper writing in cursive.

And they were able to see such a huge benefit with that cursive writing and building those pathways that help kids to memorize and comprehend information.

And so there's a lot of a lot of studies out there about cursive writing.

And when you pull all that together, it's not just a benefit for a kid to be able to sign their name.

Of course, that's just a skill I think everybody needs, but it really does lay a great foundation for learning in general.

It makes me think that even adults should be writing cursive.

Well, every once in a while as well, it should be putting pen to paper.

So why did cursive writing go way?

How did it go away in schools?

Well, I think it was 2010.

Common Core moves came down from the federal Department of Education and it got taken out.

And in Kentucky standards, we kept some level of cursive in recognition of letters, but it wasn't reinforced.

So what we've put back into our standards is a requirement of proficiency before they graduate elementary school.

So by fifth grade, they need to be proficient in cursive writing.

I think just the onset of technology and in utilizing computers more frequently in the classrooms and for different curriculums, I think that was probably why they just started to move away from it.

And it was interesting when I filed the bill, I was just talking to some of my district leaders in education, and a couple of them did say some things like, it's archaic, it's you know, it's antiquated.

We don't need it anymore.

And I really just argue that it does help strengthen the brain and and build a foundation for kids to be able to learn well.

And I'm hopeful we're going to see some improvements in literacy as this gets implemented.

Yeah.

And so that's kind of the big goal, right?

Absolutely.

So how will we how will we know if it is improving reading skills?

Well, I think we're going to see it in a couple of years as as kids get that foundational skill and obviously those early years of learning kindergarten through third grade.

I think once that's implemented, we're going to start seeing some dots being connected.

And in a couple of years we're going to see some of our test scores go up, hopefully.

Yeah, that will be nice to see.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, Senator Detroit, thank you so much for your time and expertise on this.

Thank you for having me.