Many feel that cursive instruction is a skill of the past, but before it is forgotten completely, it is important to remember what it offers us in the first place. Discover why handwriting is an important skill and learn the steps for teaching your child cursive.

Why Cursive Is Important
In every era of rapid technological advancement, there is a tendency to “do away with the old.” It happened in the 1950s after World War II when the desire for “all things new” led to the removal of many historic city halls, courthouses, and train depots. Later generations asked, “What were they thinking?”

With the light-speed development of computer processing and iPhones, a certain sector is espousing that cursive handwriting is now obsolete. Not so. There still remains a daily need to be able to write, jot, note, and record thoughts to paper through the use of a pen and pencil. Class notes, meeting notes, love notes, project lists, checklists, letters, applications, and countless other pen-to-paper tasks will continue even in the digital era. By removing cursive from the curriculum, we relegate future generations to primary manuscript chicken scratching for all of these essential recordings. They, too, will one day ask, “What were they thinking?”

More importantly, it must be remembered that everything – all documents, deeds, wills, letters, inventories, census, contracts, certificates – were done in cursive until the early 1900s. That means that to read any original ‘primary source’ from the first 200+ years of our country’s history, one needs to be able to read cursive.

So, let’s get to the nuts and bolts of teaching cursive. It’s not any more complicated than learning to ride a bicycle. Both are all about muscle memory and practice.

Tips to Teach Your Child Cursive

1. First step is to THINK BIG
Get a big roll of unlined white butcher paper, at least 24″ wide. The main strokes of cursive should be practiced with a pencil on this large paper for several days before ever opening a workbook or using small lined paper. This allows students to ‘feel’ the large muscle rhythm of cursive with their entire arm. Adding a little verbal tempo, “da-dum,” helps them understand the almost musical flow of the cursive process. This large movement process is key to the transition between choppy manuscript printing to flowing connected cursive.

For each stoke, it is very helpful, if possible, to model the large motion by lightly holding the child’s hand as he or she writes at a whiteboard or on butcher paper. Once they ‘get it,’ they won’t forget it, just like that bicycle. Remember, cursive is more of a kinesthetic ‘feeling’ task than an intellectual one.

2. Practice lowercase letters
After practicing the large stroke on big paper, the student can then transition into practicing the letters formed by that stroke, still on the large unlined paper. For example, after learning the tall loop stroke ‘l,’ the short loop stroke ‘e,’ and the tall wave stroke “t,” the student can practice a large, flowing “let,” and “tell.”

It is more effective to learn all of the lowercase letters according to their stroke rather than in alphabetical order. Each day, review the learned strokes on the big paper before adding new ones. After several days of practice on the large butcher paper, more words are added until the student is fluent. Once the student grasps the flow of cursive, he or she can transition to lined paper and a workbook. Then it’s all about practice, practice, practice.

For short easy-to-manage lessons, check out Evan-Moor’s Daily Handwriting Practice: Contemporary Cursive. Each letter in this book is introduced before children are asked to use it.

3. Introduce capital letters
Capital letters are introduced according to their beginning stroke only after all of the lowercase letters are mastered. For example, a ‘candy cane’ stroke is common to starting capital H, K, M, and N.

Basic Strokes
So, “What are the basic strokes,” you ask? The organic names help the student to visualize them.

• Wave stroke: i, s, r, u, w Tall wave stroke: t
• Curved wave stroke: c, a, d, g, o
• Short and tall loop stroke: e, b, l, f, h, k
• Hill stroke: m, n
• Combinations of above: q, j, p, y, v, z, x

Warming up with strokes on the big butcher paper before each cursive lesson is like stretching out before running. Keep cursive fun by adding music, interesting quotes to copy, and letter writing to parents and grandparents!

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Resources: Local paper companies sell wide rolls of blank white paper stock, untreated. ELMERS 75′ long, 25″ wide roll available Amazon.com and local office and craft retail stores.

Evan-Moor’s Daily Handwriting Practice: Contemporary Cursive

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Connie Pillsbury graduated from the University of Redlands with a B.A. in English Literature and earned her Lifetime Credential through the University of Southern California (USC) Honors Intern program in Elementary Education. She has over 15 years of experience as an Elementary teacher and Resource Specialist. She is currently dedicating her time to teaching cursive to students of all ages through “Connie’s Cursive,” a community service program on the Central Coast of California.