But just as those aren’t enough to impose learning Roman numerals on all schoolchildren, cursive’s time is up, now that all people will spend so much less time writing by hand.

Consequently, cursive writing instruction waned. But within the past decade, statewide cursive requirements have been trending upward. In 2016, 14 states required schools to teach cursive writing.

These cursive forms gradually evolved into what we now call lowercase letters.After the fall of Rome, medieval scripts didn’t clearly distinguish between letter cases.

The efficient writing style once thrived in U.S. businesses and schools, but researchers fret that today’s lack of cursive literacy may have a surprising impact on history—and ourselves.

Teila Rubagumya practices writing an uppercase letter C in class at St. Brigid School in Portland. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald The simpler D’Nealian script was introduced in the 1970s.

Cursive is for when you have nothing else to do, or want to live out some steampunk fantasy. Typing, voice dictation technology or my usual chicken scratch would’ve done the job far faster.

Learning cursive is good for children’s fine motor skills, and writing in longhand generally helps students retain more information and generate more ideas.