Making a cursive comeback?

LEO, Ind. (WANE) - Indiana lawmakers want to pass a bill to make cursive a requirement in schools after dropping it from the curriculum in 2011.

The state Senate's education committee will hold hold a hearing Wednesday to discuss a cursive writing bill proposed. The bill would require all public schools and accredited private elementary schools to teach cursive in the classroom.

" I feel that they need cursive for two reasons: for their signature and also just to be able to read cursive," said Cari Kaylor, a fourth grade teacher at Leo Elementary.

Around Christmas, Kaylor was writing thank you notes to her students for presents and noticed a common thread.

"I write them all in cursive and several students came up and asked me to read it to them because they couldn't read it because a lot of them can't read cursive," Kaylor said.

One of the reasons they dropped cursive was because lawmakers wanted a greater emphasis put on typing, but now, teachers said even that is going away.

"The traditional typing using home row because on the iPads we don't have the keyboards for the students, so a lot of them are doing the hunt and peck typing," Kaylor said.

However, students are becoming more adept at using technology. One fourth grader wrote a sentence using cursive and again on the iPad. She could type her sentence in nearly half the time.

"On the cursive, I had to look up on the board because I don't know how to do the capital letters, and on the iPad, I don't even have to look up because the letters are there," said Addi Kaylor, a fourth grader at Leo.

The state Senate approved a bill similar to the one being proposed last year, but it never made it to the House.