SAUGUS — When a Saugus woman learned that generations of people no longer know how to read or write in cursive, she started a free class to try to preserve the skill.
“Now we have teachers who were never taught it so they can’t instruct it,” said Charlotte Line. “I had one mom come to me and say ‘you know, I sent my son over to pick up a Father’s Day card and he said he liked the card but he couldn’t read it.’ She was shocked.”
Alarmed that society could revert to a time when only doctors, lawyers, and clergy could write, Line found a way to help the problem on a local level.
Over the summer, she offered it free to children, but learned there were many adults who could benefit from learning the skill too. Now, she has a small group of adults in their 20s and 30s who are learning how to write on Tuesday nights.
“Just hearing that people didn’t know how to write in cursive — I just thought it was the oddest thing,” she said. “People say ‘you won’t need it;’ well, yes, you will. If you’re ever reading an old document, you’ll need to be able to read it.”
Equally important is that people know how to properly sign their own names, she said.
“You have to be able to sign your name, you have to be able to sign mortgage documents,” she said. “If you’ve never learned cursive, what are you going to do? Write an ‘x’ like they used to?”
Line, who worked as a human resource recruiter for technical engineers, said she would look at an applicant’s handwriting for patterns that could reveal certain tendencies.
“I was never a handwriting specialist but I did get great handwriting training when I grew up in Saugus,” she said.
Line learned the Rhinehart Method and teaches a modified version to her students.
The four-week class began on Oct. 16 and will continue on Tuesday nights for four weeks. It is offered for free, but there is a $5 fee for supplies.
The class begins with learning vowels. Gradually, letters are added until the students master them all. Then they practice simple words and sentences until they can complete the sentence “a quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” which uses all 26 letters in the alphabet.
During the last class, Line hands out a piece of stationary to each student and tasks them with writing a “thank you” note to the person who sent them to the class.
Line has already taught the course three times and has plans to offer it again in the future. For more information about how to sign up, email her at [email protected].
