Georgia’s History is Written in Cursive. Can Your Child Read it?

Georgia students may struggle to read their own state’s historical records because they never learned cursive. A new digital teaching kit from the Georgia Historical Society tackles both problems at once.

Why It Matters: Handwritten documents hold Georgia’s stories, but they’re useless if students can’t decipher the script. This free resource gives teachers a way to teach cursive while making history tangible and personal.

What’s Happening: The Georgia Historical Society released its Decoding Histories digital kit Wednesday, offering K–12 educators and students hands-on practice reading and writing cursive through original Georgia documents.

The kit includes teacher guides, primary source investigations, cursive practice worksheets, and curated collections from GHS archives. All materials align with Georgia’s English Language Arts and Social Studies standards.

“When you read old handwriting, history feels personal,” said LaPortia Mosley, Community Engagement Officer at GHS. “The Decoding Histories Inquiry Kit gives teachers and students a fun, hands-on way to explore cursive, work with primary sources, and connect with the past.”

Between the Lines: The kit solves a practical problem. Many states dropped cursive requirements over the past two decades, leaving students unable to read letters, diaries, and official records that document Georgia’s past. Without cursive literacy, primary sources become inaccessible.

The Big Picture: The digital kit is part of GHS’s Community Archives Initiative, funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. That broader project works with schools and organizations across Georgia to digitize materials and expand whose voices appear in the historical record.

Georgia-Pacific provided support for the Decoding Histories kit specifically.

The kit is available now for free download at georgiahistory.com/resource/decoding-histories-inquiry-kit.

The Sources: Georgia Historical Society.