Is the writing on the wall for cursive instruction?

One day last summer, Catherine de la Cruz wrote a note to two teenage ranch hands outlining jobs that needed to be done.

When the work didn't get done, de la Cruz of Santa Rosa walked over to where the two girls were standing and clutching the piece of paper.

"They were literally puzzling over this note," de la Cruz said. "I was taught penmanship by the nuns, so I have a pretty decent hand."

It wasn't the legibility that vexed the teenagers, it was the script. The note was written in cursive.

"The younger one said, &‘They don't teach us antique writing in school. Why didn't you just text me?'"

While California academic standards currently include cursive instruction in the third and fourth grades, it is not part of standardized testing, so some educators have moved away from script lessons to devote more time to English and math.

The role of "antique" writing is being debated in California as state and education officials mull over what skills and information will be tested after the new national "common core" standardized assessments are put in place.

Backers of the script form that flows uninterrupted from one letter to the next say cursive not only helps students develop fine motor skills, it allows them to explore historic documents and better understand notes from Grandma.

For Kalen Wood, education director at Waldorf-inspired Sunridge School in Sebastopol, cursive instruction is a key component in the evolution of communication for students.

"Cursive is about unifying the physical will with what you have to say inside of you," she said. "It's not that you can't do that with a computer.But to do that when you are very young is a very cold way of interacting and we want to keep it sensory rich. We want them to feel that pencil moving across the paper."

The new common-core standards have been adopted by dozens of states, including California, but cursive is not among the academic requirements that states have agreed to.

But states can add cursive back into the mix — California did just that. But with budget and time constraints, it is unclear just how many teachers will be willing to teach students a skill that might not show up on a standardized test.

Some educators believe that cursive is not only a form of communication, but a key part of a student's motor-skill development. However, others say precious classroom time might be better used teaching students proper keyboarding technique.

When Colleen Flores teaches her Alexander Valley School third-graders how to make the letter T in lowercase cursive, she has them sit with feet on the floor, backs straight, and make the motion in the air. In unison, the students say "sharp top, slant, cross" as their hands move through the air.

"Your whole arms moves as a unit," Flores said.

For some students, cursive comes as a relief — a flowing format rather than the stops and starts of print lettering.

Giving students options for different ways of getting ideas out is important, said Gaylene Rosaschi, principal at Evergreen Elementary School in Rohnert Park.

"For a lot of kids, the process of writing is twofold. It's coming up with the idea, but also the physical act of writing," she said. "For many students, the physical act of writing is the part they like the least. It can be a turnoff to being a good writer."

Educators say moving from block printing to cursive is analogous to the way a student learns to read by sounding out a word before moving on to speaking in a flow.

"What is great about cursive is it's sort of a flowing process — each letter flows into the next so a word can be done in one stroke," said Nicole Mul? a third-grade teacher at Steele Lane Elementary School in Santa Rosa.

For Mul? keyboarding may be the future, but finances rule the day in many schools.

"If you aren't going to ensure that every child, regardless of economic background, is going to have a computer to use, you can't put that in a standard," she said. "Until we are ready to put our money behind our priorities, then they can't be our priorities."

Bob Raines, principal and superintendent of Alexander Valley School, hopes for a balance between being facile at keyboarding and understanding the intricacies of cursive, yet is pragmatic the role of state standardized tests will play in that compromise.

"The degree to which cursive is assessed is going to drive a lot of our decisions," he said.

"At some point, we are going to have to say &‘Is that really worth the instructional time?'" he said. "I still think it's a viable skill as long as we are not ignoring keyboarding."

Educators, including Raines, said history is full of texts that were not created by machines and that take an understanding of cursive and more-antiquated scripts in order to read.

"If you want to read anything historic, you have to know (cursive)," said Tom Adams, director of curriculum frameworks and instructional resources with the California Department of Education. "Take for example the original printing of the Declaration of Independence — that document is handwritten."

Staff Writer Kerry Benefield writes an education blog at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.

com. She can be reached at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield

@pressdemocrat.com.