Love loopy letters? Cursive is Cool contest aims to keep art of penmanship alive

Canadian children used to spend hours in the classroom perfecting their loopy letters in the name of cursive writing.

But as classrooms embrace the digital age, school curriculums are slowly writing off the art of penmanship in favour of keyboarding skills.

The non-profit organization Campaign for Cursive is dedicated to educatingkids and adults on the benefits of cursive writing.

Committee member Edda Manleyspoke with the Calgary Eyeopenerabout the group's second annual Cursive is Cool contest, which launched this week for elementary school-aged kids in Canada.

• Robots have mastered the art of handwriting

Manley says it's not only cursive that is falling out of favour in Canadian public schools, but handwriting is significantly declining as well.

"We're finding that a lot of the children in private schools [and] children in other parts of the world, they still have the cursive writing,but for some reason here in North America, we're choosing to ignore the ability to write," she said.

"I think that will be overall to the detriment of students in the long run."

Studies have shown the act of writing by hand creates more neural pathways than typing on a keyboard or reading, Manleysays, and teaching traditional penmanship is especially important to the brain development of young children.

Cursive is Cool

The Campaign for Cursive started the Cursive is Cool contest to help encourage the art of penmanship in young kids.

"We find that children who can write in cursive, they are so excited about it, they are so happy and proud to be able to do it," Manley said.

"So this is why we started the contest to try to keep that momentum going," she added.

The contest is open to children inGrade 1 through Grade 6.

In its first year, Manley says the contest attracted nearly 200 entries from English students across Canada. Thisyear, they are also holding the contest in French.

To enter the contest, kids simply have to write five or six sentences in cursive on a sheet of paper and mail it in. The entries are examined by a panel of judges who award prizes for things like best handwriting and most creative answers.

The contest began on Jan. 11 and entries must be postmarked by March 3 to be considered.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener