Lynne Kenney, PsyD

There is something almost ceremonial about watching a child loop their first lowercase l across a page. The pencil glides, the wrist follows, the brain lights up. Cursive handwriting, once considered a relic of a slower era, is enjoying a quiet renaissance, both in classrooms and in the neuroscience literature. For educators, clinicians, and parents trying to make sense of why this skill keeps returning to the curriculum, the answer lives at the intersection of motor learning, memory consolidation, and the elegant choreography of hand and mind.

I always wondered why my grandmother’s cursive was more Edwardian than mine. Then I learned there are actually different styles of cursive handwriting.

This post walks through the major styles of cursive handwriting that teachers and families are likely to encounter, then turns to the research on why learning cursive remains a meaningful investment in a child’s developing brain.

A Brief Tour Through Cursive Styles

Cursive is not a single script. It is a family of related handwriting systems, each shaped by history, geography, and pedagogical philosophy. Knowing the differences helps educators choose intentionally and helps parents recognize what their child is being taught.

Spencerian Script

Developed by Platt Rogers Spencer in the mid-1800s, Spencerian was once the dominant American cursive style; it is known for its elegant, flowing, and ornate appearance. Letters are slanted, oval-based, and feature graceful flourishes. It was the script of nineteenth-century business correspondence and the ancestor of the original Coca-Cola logo. Today it survives mostly in calligraphy circles, but its DNA runs through nearly every cursive style that followed (Ose Askvik et al., 2020).

Palmer Method

The Palmer Method, once the most popular cursive style of 1890s America, is a simplified version of the Spencerian method. Austin Norman Palmer wanted something faster and more practical for the bookkeeping and clerical work of the industrial age. The result was a streamlined, muscular script with fewer flourishes, taught through whole-arm movement rather than finger motion. Many grandparents in the United States learned to write this way.

Zaner-Bloser Cursive

In 1891, Charles Zaner and Elmer Bloser developed the Zaner-Bloser method, which was taught for decades in American educational institutions. Its hallmark is clarity: the Zaner-Bloser printing style is straight up and down, quite different from the Zaner-Bloser cursive style, which is slanted. Many schools still start teaching cursive using this method today. For generations of American schoolchildren, this is the cursive they remember.

D’Nealian

In 1978, the D’Nealian style broke down the Palmer Method to make cursive easier to teach. D’Nealian, also called the Modern Manuscript, has slanting letters and many similarities between its print and cursive forms, allowing for a smoother transition from D’Nealian printing to D’Nealian cursive. The genius of D’Nealian is the bridge it builds: print letters already carry the little tails and slants that will eventually connect into cursive, so the leap is smaller for young writers.

Italic Cursive

Italic cursive is distinguished by the use of both a connected cursive letterform and an unconnected form; the italic unconnected letterform is almost identical to the connected letterform. The Getty-Dubay Italic method is the best-known modern example. It traces back to Renaissance Italy and offers what many calligraphers consider the most legible cursive option, especially for children who struggle with the loops and reversals of traditional looping cursive.

Copperplate (English Roundhand)

The earliest cursive type used in the United States was imported from England and is generally called English Roundhand; it is also referred to as Copperplate because of its use in early printing, where it was engraved into copper plates. The Declaration of Independence of the United States was written in the Copperplate cursive method. Highly formal and deeply ornamental, it lives on today primarily as a calligraphy art form.

New American Cursive and Modern Variants

Newer curricula, such as New American Cursive, simplify capital letters and reduce extraneous strokes, making cursive more accessible for young children, left-handed writers, and students with motor planning differences. These streamlined styles reflect a contemporary understanding that legibility and motor efficiency matter more than ornamentation.

Why Cursive Still Matters: What the Research Says

For a while, it looked as though cursive might quietly fade from American classrooms. The Common Core standards adopted in 2010 did not require it, and many districts dropped instruction to make room for keyboarding. The tide, however, has turned. Less than 10 years ago, only 14 states required schools to teach cursive; that number has steadily increased, with roughly half of U.S. states now having some form of requirement. Pennsylvania most recently joined in early 2026, with Act 2 requiring cursive handwriting to be taught in Pennsylvania public and private schools.

What changed? In large part, the application of neuroscience.

Handwriting Builds Brain Connectivity in Ways Typing Does Not

A landmark 2024 study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology used high-density EEG to compare brain activity during handwriting and typing in college students. When asked to handwrite words, college students showed increased connectivity across the brain, particularly in brain waves associated with memory formation, compared with when they typed them (Van der Weel & Van der Meer, 2024).

The mechanism appears to be tied to the sensorimotor complexity of forming letters. Careful letter formation when writing by hand makes greater use of the senses; since the movement of the fingers when forming letters promotes brain connectivity, the simple act of repeatedly hitting a key with the same finger is less stimulating for the brain.

Handwriting requires fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems, and this seems to engage the brain more deeply in ways that support learning. As cognitive neuroscientist Marieke Longcamp has noted, handwriting is probably among the most complex motor skills the brain is capable of. Dr. Longcamp’s research (such as her pivotal 2005 neuroimaging studies) highlights the intricate interplay of visual and motor processing required for handwriting, which deeply engages the brain. 

Handwriting Activates the Reading Circuit

The link between handwriting and reading is not metaphorical. Researchers Karin James and Laura Engelhardt used MRI neuroimaging to investigate the effects of handwriting on functional brain development in young children, and they found that handwriting, but not typing or tracing letter shapes, activated a unique reading circuit in the brain. These findings demonstrate that handwriting is important for the early recruitment of brain regions known to underlie successful reading in letter processing (James & Engelhardt, 2012).

In other words, the act of producing a letter by hand helps the brain recognize that letter when reading. The motor program and the perceptual program are built together.

Cursive Develops Functional Specialization

Cursive may offer something distinctive among handwriting types. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple brain areas become co-activated during learning to write cursive pseudo-letters, compared with typing or visual practice alone, with spillover benefits for thinking skills (Klemm, 2013). Learning cursive trains the brain in functional specialization, the capacity for optimal efficiency, by integrating sensation, movement control, and thinking.

Automaticity Frees Cognitive Resources

Once cursive becomes automatic, the brain can devote its working memory to the ideas being expressed rather than to the mechanics of forming each letter. By teaching children a single handwriting pattern, children develop automatic, subconscious control of handwriting, freeing the thinking parts of the brain for other cognitive skills associated with learning. Research by Virginia Berninger at the University of Washington demonstrates that children write faster and express more ideas when writing essays by hand (Berninger et al., 2009).

This is the same principle that governs skilled movement in athletics or music. Once the motor pattern is reliable, the mind is free to compose.

Theta Rhythms and the Conditions for Learning

Earlier work by Ose Askvik and colleagues at NTNU found that handwriting produces a particular kind of brain activity associated with memory and learning. The oscillatory neuronal activity observed in particular brain areas during handwriting is important for memory and the encoding of new information, providing the brain with optimal conditions for learning. Event-related synchronized activity in the theta range was observed in both children and young adults in parietal and central brain regions, but only during handwriting (Ose Askvik et al., 2020).

Theta activity in these regions is the neural signature of a brain binding information for later retrieval.

Practical Reasons That Still Matter

Beyond brain science, several practical arguments keep appearing in legislative debates and parent surveys. Cursive supports the development of a personal signature, allows children to read historic documents and family letters, and offers a form of motor practice that some children find genuinely calming. For children with learning differences, cursive can offer a more accessible and effective way to communicate, in part because its continuous flow reduces the spatial decisions required to lift and replace the pencil between letters. Writing in cursive engages different areas of the brain compared to printing or typing. It stimulates neural pathways related to language, memory, and critical thinking.

Where This Leads Us

The case for cursive is not nostalgia, though nostalgia is a perfectly fine reason to love it. The case is grounded in what we now understand about how the brain learns through the body. Handwriting is a motor, perceptual, and cognitive act, all happening together. Cursive intensifies that integration through its connected, rhythmic flow. The pen, in this sense, is a small instrument for building a larger brain.

For educators choosing a style, the question is rarely which one is best in the abstract. Which one fits the developmental profile of the children in front of them? D’Nealian smooths the transition from print. New American Cursive eases the load for motor-challenged hands. Zaner-Bloser remains familiar and structured. Italic supports children who need maximum legibility. What matters most is consistency, instruction, and time to practice.

For parents wondering whether cursive is worth the effort, the research offers a clear and gentle answer. Yes. The brain that writes is a brain that remembers, reads, and thinks with more depth. That is a gift worth giving.

References

Berninger, V. W., Abbott, R. D., Augsburger, A., & Garcia, N. (2009). Comparison of pen and keyboard transcription modes in children with and without learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 32(3), 123–141. https://doi.org/10.2307/27740364

James, K. H., & Engelhardt, L. (2012). The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 1(1), 32–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2012.08.001

Longcamp, M., Richards, T. L., Velay, J. L., & Berninger, V. W. (2016). Neuroanatomy of Handwriting and Related Reading and Writing Skills in Adults and Children with and without Learning Disabilities: French-American Connections. Pratiques, 171-172, 3175. https://doi.org/10.4000/pratiques.3175

Mounstephen, M. (2026). Chapter 7 Handwriting and Movement: Addressing Delays and Difficulties in Kuczala and Kenney, Move More, Learn More. Teachers College Press.

Ose Askvik, E., Van der Weel, F. R., & Van der Meer, A. L. H. (2020). The importance of cursive handwriting over typewriting for learning in the classroom: A high-density EEG study of 12-year-old children and young adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1810. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01810

Van der Meer, A. L. H., & Van der Weel, F. R. (2017). Only three fingers write, but the whole brain works: A high-density EEG study showing advantages of drawing over typing for learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 706. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00706

Van der Weel, F. R., & Van der Meer, A. L. H. (2024). Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: A high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1219945. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945