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In just over a week from now kids across the province will be heading to back to school. While a lot of attention has been paid to the changes in math education lately, some are more concerned about handwriting.

With texting and e-mail taking over, the need to write has decreased considerably. Many schools aren’t making cursive in the classroom a top priority.

It’s a growing concern for some like handwriting specialist Edda Manley.

“Cursive develops a better brain, it develops more adult-like, neural pathways in your brain, which is really important when you’re growing in the developmental years, you want to have as many of those as you can.”

Cursive is part of the Ontario curriculum, but it’s not mandatory.  It is considered an example, but not a specific expectation of what to teach says Sandie Pizzuti from the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic School Board.

“The issue is that it is not highly emphasized in the Ontario curriculum in the writing section of the language curriculum.”

The school board says parents need to understand that teachers are focusing on accomplishing the overall writing goals.

“Being able to organize ideas, information into structured written formats which make a lot of sense, which communicate an important message, which address and presented in a format which represent the audience that written piece is being communicated to.”

Ultimately, the board acknowledges there is still a place for cursive in the curriculum and that it’s not a complete write off.

The board says there are hundreds of expectations teachers need to address in the course of a year. It suggests parents access the language curriculum document online to see a break down of what’s being taught.

The document can be found here.