These super simple cursive handwriting worksheets are great for learning to write in cursive or just reinforce the skills that they’re learning in school.
There are few things that I remember well from elementary school, but learning to write in cursive was one of them. I was so excited – I remember thinking that I had finally arrived and that maybe after I’d mastered all the letters, I’d finally be grown up – my 3rd grade mind was hilarious, don’t you think?
I was lucky – our time spent learning cursive was everything I thought it would be. Writing those beautiful letters was the highlight of my day. My own daughter is in 3rd grade now, and she’s every bit as excited to write in cursive as I was. Wanting to practice is never an issue (I lucked out there…), but I’ve found that sometimes the practicing isn’t helping as much as it could – think writing on a white board and swirly letters and such that look a lot more like doodling rather than beautiful smooth lines and equally spaced letters.
So I decided to take a few minutes and use my handwriting road paper that I shared awhile back as a starting point. The results have been some simple worksheets that have provided my girl, and myself, a few minutes to strengthen our handwriting skills!
Tips & Practice Helps for Cursive Handwriting Practice
I’m not a teacher – but I am a graphic designer with a huge passion for typography. I’ve spent a fair amount of time looking at handwriting and fonts, and studying the composition of letters and characters. It’s all fairly technical but the following tips should help make teaching or practicing with your kiddo a little easier.
- make sure you have a clear, flat surface to write on where your kiddos feet can sit flat on the floor. Being uncomfortable or unbalanced while trying to form lines and loops makes it harder.
- you’ll want to have your paper slightly tilted to the LEFT for right-handed kids and slightly to the RIGHT for left-handed kiddos.
- you’ll want to review the steps of letter creation before setting them off to practice.
- remember that cursive letters all have a slight slant – they lean slightly to the right
- connecting the letters is just as important as forming them – so make sure that you don’t forget to practice the starting and ending strokes on each letter and point these out to your child.
- spend a short amount of time practicing – we do what we call a “warm up”. The whole process takes around 10-15 minutes and that includes getting set up. Enthusiastic learners might want to spend a little more time and if that’s the case they can move through the exercises more quickly or repeat the worksheets.
Learning Cursive Clock Letters
Lowercase letters are taught first when learning cursive and often letters that are formed similarly are grouped together. With that in mind, this worksheet set includes lowercase letters – c, a, d, g, o & q.
These letters are sometimes referred to as the “clock” letters, meaning that they start at the 2 on a clock face. This starting point is marked with a black dot in the worksheets. When one of these letters starts a word, there is no upswing connecting stroke. You’ll find lines to practice both with and without the short upswing to the 2 on the clock stroke -so you hand can get used to both motions.
You’ll also find a “Connecting Lines” worksheet that covers all the different connecting strokes used in cursive writing. You can use this sheet as a reference and practice sheet as you learn the new connecting strokes for each set of cursive letters.
Once all of the practice sheets are completed, there is a final practice sheet that has lines for each of the lowercase clock letters in this set and a few words that use the clock letters. My daughter was the most excited about penning actual words – I’m sure your kiddo will probably love this portion of the worksheets as well.
What You Need to Get Started With Cursive Handwriting Worksheets
If you’ve been around my site much, you probably already know that I like to keep things super cute, super effective, and super simple whenever possible. Here’s what you’ll need to get started:
- access to the cursive handwriting worksheets files, download below
- white copy paper
- access to a printer
- pencils (our school asks for these specifically and I thought they were a little crazy, turns out all No.2 pencils are not created equal and this momma is now an exclusive user of these… seriously the best!)
And that’s it…You’re ready to start practicing your cursive handwriting!
