Tyara Brooks teaches her fourth-grade students how to write in cursive at Longfellow Elementary School in Pasadena. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) “Messy! Messy!” Nearly 40 years later, the ...

Nearly 40 years later, the admonishments of my second-grade teacher at Thomas Jefferson Elementary in Anaheim still ring in my ears. “Messy! Messy!” I was a precocious 8-year-old, placed in a ...

Goodness, I hate writing cursive. Some people love it. They enjoy and admire the flourishes, the art and the discipline that go into writing “longhand.” (Does anybody use that word anymore?) My late ...

When Celia Batan sat down to write her graduate thesis, she started with one question: “What do we lose if we do not teach children how to connect letters instead of printing or typing?” On the ...

Because you are reading this in typeface (or maybe even listening to this in an audio format), cursive probably isn’t even on your radar. Who writes in cursive anymore? Maybe to sign checks or ...

The adult college student, earning his degree at a New York State college to better himself, was ticked off. His adolescent son couldn’t sign his name — not because he wasn’t a smart kid, but because ...