How to Teach Your Children Cursive

The problem was that I assumed. I assumed that my children would learn cursive at school-a place designed for learning things such as cursive.  To my chagrin my children were not taught cursive-their teachers were more concerned about teaching them test taking skills. They didn't have "time" to teach them this skill. This summer I wanted to make sure my children knew this important skill.

I've done a bit of research to help their learning process go smoothly.  If you are trying to figure out how to teach your children cursive too, and you don't want to spend a lot of money on workbooks I've got some ideas for you.

First, do NOT teach cursive in alphabetical order! So many workbooks and online printables start this way. It will make cursive frustrating for all.  Here's where to start:

Print off a few blank worksheets. I found these worksheets to be great

Upstroke: show a basic upstroke. Start at the bottom of the solid line and go up. Google cursive upstroke to get a lot of images to show your child.

Downstroke: from an upstroke pull the pen down to from a down stroke. Think of the letter L-first your do an upstroke, then you pull the pen down to form your loop.

Day 1: Teach upstroke, downstroke, letters e,l show how to form a good loop-oval not a circle

Day 2: letters u, i, t  no loops, remember to dot and cross after the entire word is written

Day 3: letters c, a, d.  Show how to make a wave, help them remember each letter has an upstroke to start and a tail to end. The letter "d" goes all the way to the ascending line

Day 4: letters n, m. Children love these letters. 

Day 5: letters h, k. The loop connects higher than the l. Go over the k carefully. Show them how it relates to a printed k.

Day 6: letters f, q. This is the first time they will use the descender line. Help them with the q, it is hard sometimes to remember the loop is on the right. They may write a g a few times.

Day 7: letters g, p, j. More descending letters. They will have fun with all the words they can write now.

Day 8: letters y, z. Z is probably the most complicated one today. 

Day 9: letters r, s, x. These are important letters and require precise line placement. An R without a sharp point and look like an n. A sloppy S can look more like an O.

Day 10: letters b, w.  These letters are different because their tail comes off at the top of the letter. Take time to show how these letters connect to others. 

Day 11: letters o, v. Just like day 10, these letters connect differently.

Now your child can write the entire alphabet.  You can teach them capital letters in a similar order or go with alphabetical. I would start with the capital letter of their first name.

Next up...trick and techniques that have worked well for us.