Cursive writing is making a comeback. After being made optional in 2006, cursive will return this September as a mandatory part of the Ontario elementary school curriculum. Education Minister Stephen ...

However, a 2012 study in Trends in Neuroscience and Education also found that cursive writing activated different parts of the brain in a group of five-year-olds, when compared with typing or tracing.

Relegated in 2006 to an optional piece of learning in Ontario elementary schools, cursive writing is set to return as a mandatory part of the curriculum starting in September.

Writing feels "complicated," said the only left-hander in the household, and she didn't remember learning cursive writing in school. Anna, 14, read without hesitation, but when it came to writing ...

Cursive writing was previously relegated in 2006 as an optional piece of learning in Ontario elementary schools. Cursive is set to make its return to schools starting in Grade 3.

Join the conversation A student practices writing in cursive at St. Mark's Lutheran School in Hacienda Heights, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012. Cursive is making a comeback.

“The kids we get in our handwriting class are just printing. They have no real concept of how to form cursive letters,” Chan, a former elementary school teacher, says.

For many, the return of mandatory cursive handwriting instruction in the Ontario curriculum, starting in Grade 3, is a welcome and long-overdue move on the part of the Ministry of Education.

In cursive handwriting, the individual letters of a word are joined with connecting strokes, such as in a person’s signature. Cursive fell out of favor in U.S. schools over a decade ago.