Some Cursive Writing Resources

It's been a while since I've added to my blog, but since I was doing some work for a teacher putting together some cursive writing resources, I may as well post it on the blog for others!

Sometimes, when students are struggling with printing/handwriting well meaning teachers and other professionals assume that cursive would be impossible. Well, I think the opposite may be true for many of our struggling students. I have found that poor handwriting that is still illegible into the 2nd and 3rd grades is a result of many factors. One of them may be that the student was required to write well before they were developmentally ready for it - especially boys. They were forced to hold a pencil before their hands were ready and ultimately learned many poor habits both from a physiological standpoint and a developmental stand point. If they were improperly instructed on correct letter formation sequencing and were then drilled over and over repeating the same error, they likely habituated to this style. The result can be a very inefficient and illegible outcome, especially if the student is struggling with other areas of learning like spelling, sentence structure/formation, language, reading, etc.

For some of these kids, an opportunity to start fresh with their peers on a NEW style of writing (cursive) can be a blessing. Now that they are developmentally ready to learn how to write, they can start over and not fall behind their peers. Cursive writing can be motivating, and very "grown-up". Our printers who incorrectly print letters from the bottom-up can now learn a way to hand write from the bottom-up correctly using cursive!

So where do you start? My favorite program of all time is Mary Benbow's Loops and Groups Cursive Writing Program. This program uses a Kinesthetic and cognitive approach to learning how to write.


I don't' suggest printing off the worksheets and handing them to your struggling student. You have to TEACH the student how to write. The program emphasises quality of movement sequencing, not quantity of drill. The worst thing you can do is leave your struggling student alone/unsupervised to complete cursive or printing writing lessons. You need to make sure they are completing the sequences correctly every time!


You don't have to buy an expensive program. Just make sure you know how to form and teach the letters and create your own. Here are some internet resources that may be helpful that show cursive letter animations, and some that have printable worksheets. You can also make your own tracer worksheets. Be careful with tracing - it's easy to just give these to a student and walk away. How will you know if he/she traced the letters in the correct sequence?

This lower case animation page can be helpful for teaching individual letters. However, it does NOT use the lead in stroke for the "clock climber" letters taught in Benbow's program.
Handwriting for kids

These printed worksheets and tracer pages are very similar to Benbow's approach, but the letter groups are named differently.
kidzone



Pencil Pete is excellent! This one will only cost you a few dollars, but it contains printable worksheets and excellent software animations of the correct letter formations - all consistent with Benbow's approach. They learning sequence isn't the same, but the letter formations are. They have a great printing/manuscript program, too.



pencil pete



Check out my blog for previous resources on printing/handwriting!