Teaching Cursive

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Home : 2006 : January : 22

Teaching Cursive
By sovay

I've been teaching cursive for over 25 years without a workbook, and I'll post my order (using Zaner Bloser) for anyone who is being asked to teach it with no reference, as often seems to be the case. I always start having
them write their letters two-spaces high so they have that middle guide line to use.

Start with the lower case letters. There are several "families" of letters. I teach the families in this order: Under Curves (l, i, t, e, h, r, s, b, j, u, k, p, w, f), Over Curves (n, m, y, v, z, x), and Down Curves (a, c, g, d, o, q). I try to start with easier letters first so they don't get

discouraged. There are also various tricky connection which I teach as needed. The various "hook" connections(br, be, or, os, wr, etc.) can be a real problem for some. The medial "u" is another one to watch. Getting two line in the "u" instead of one or three can be a problem.

Then teach the capitals. I start with A, C, and E. Then with the main family, which is the Cane Stem (N, M, U, V, W, Y, H, Z, K, X, Q). The rest don't have as much in common, so I teach them in any order until I am finished.

Finally, when the kids have a pretty good grasp of all the letter formations and connections, I work on shrinking the writing to one-space high, making sure that the "tall" letters touch the top line and the half-space letters aren't too big or too small.

Of course, this takes forever. Looking over this post, I can see why the cursive lessons that I used to be finished with by Christmas 20 years ago are only half done today. There is so much more in the third grade curriculum than there used to be. I know the question of which subject could be left out has appeared on one of these boards. There certainly isn't enough time to do justice to this one. It took me several years of trial and error to get the teaching of cursive right.