Ohio schools will be required to teach cursive writing to students under a bill signed into law by Governor John Kasich on Wednesday.

The legislation requires the Department of Education to include supplemental instructional materials in cursive handwriting.

Saying that development of handwriting should be a universal skill, legislators ordered development of a curriculum for grades kindergarten through five.

The instructional materials shall be designed to enable students to print letters and words legibly by grade three and create readable documents using legible cursive handwriting by the end of grade five.

The instructional materials must be available by July 1.

Sponsors of the bill say cursive writing has been found by several associations and institutions that deal with challenges such as dyslexia to be extremely helpful in supporting focus, learning patterns, memory, and spelling.

Studies have shown that the brain learns better when there is constant movement from the hand, rather than the hand having to be lifted after every pen stroke, according to supporters of the bill.

Sponsors day some documents in day-to-day life are still in cursive, and the next generation will require the skills to understand them.