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TPS gearing up for cursive coming back to the classroom

The legislation requires the Ohio Department of Education to develop and adopt a model curriculum in cursive handwriting instruction. Then districts can decide whether they want to implement it.

TOLEDO (WTOL) - You probably remember practicing your cursive handwriting around third grade or so. Some students in Ohio will be crossing those t’s and dotting the i’s again soon.

“As a public school district in Ohio, we’ll do our best to make sure our kids are ready for it,” said Executive Transformational Leader of Curriculum for Toledo Public Schools, Jim Gault.

The mandate to teach cursive was dropped in Ohio several years ago, but sponsors of a bill just signed by the Governor said being proficient in cursive allows children to develop improved literacy skills, fine motor skills, as well as increased cognitive development.

The legislation requires the Ohio Department of Education to develop and adopt a model curriculum in cursive handwriting instruction. Then districts can decide whether they want to implement it.

Gault said some teachers have continued teaching cursive this whole time. Now the rest will follow suit.

“I would imagine this would be something that would have some instruction and then be like a bell work or something that would be done early in the day, as the day is getting ready to begin, etc, because not only do we have cursive, but we have a lot of language arts mandates that we need to meet," he said.

Gault said instruction will likely begin in third grade, with kids becoming proficient by 5th. Per the legislation just passed, the curriculum model from the DOE will be available to districts in mid-2019 to use in the 2019-2020 school year.

Executive Director of Teaching and Learning for Perrysburg Schools said the district is looking forward to review upcoming ODE cursive curriculum.

“Governor Kasich’s signing of House Bill 58 initiates work to be done by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) on the development of a cursive curriculum. Perrysburg Schools actively reviews curriculum and ODE updates as they are released in an effort to best serve our students. We look forward to doing the same with the upcoming cursive curriculum.”

You can read the bill here.

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