While many are dropping cursive from the school curriculum, seeing it as a useless skill wasting student time, parochial schools in our region continue to teach the art of handwriting and good penmanship, writes Melanie Burney and Kristen A. Graham for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Local Catholic school teachers see it as a sign of a good education and etiquette for sending personal notes.

At Cardinal John Foley Regional Catholic School in Havertown, students make the transition from print to cursive in the second grade.

”They come into second grade and they see their name tags written out in cursive handwriting, and it’s a big deal,” said teacher Lori Carrozza, a 31-year educator.

On a recent morning in Carrozza’s class, students were tackling lowercase Ks, remaining laser-focused on the task.

By April, the class should have mastered cursive, Carrozza said, and will spend the rest of their years at the school using cursive exclusively.

Maryann DeAngelo, Cardinal Foley’s principal, pointed out that cursive writing, manuscript and keyboarding all develop different parts of the brain.

“When we say we’re educating the whole child, I think it’s important to teach all three,” she said.

Read more about the lost art of cursive here.

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