Cursive letters, A to Z
Cursive is one continuous movement rather than a set of separate shapes. Every letter here starts and finishes on the baseline, which is exactly why the letters join: the exit of one is the entry of the next.
Teach cursive by shared entry stroke
The same argument that applies to print applies here, only more so. Cursive letters are built from a small number of movements, and letters that share an entry stroke are far easier to learn together than letters that happen to be adjacent in the alphabet.
Counter-clockwise oval letters
A downcurve lead-in: rise from the baseline to about the one o'clock position on the letter body, then roll back over the top and travel counter-clockwise round the outside of an oval down to the baseline. What happens after the oval, a short stem, a tall stem, a tail, or a level exit, is all that separates these six.
Retraced stem letters
An undercurve lead-in straight up to the midline or the top line, then a return journey back down over exactly the same line. The whole family lives or dies on whether the child retraces on the line rather than beside it.
Undercurve valley letters
Repeated undercurve swings between the baseline and the midline, dipping at the bottom rather than arching at the top. These are the letters most often confused with the arched pair n and m, and drilling the two groups against each other is the fastest way to fix that.
Looped ascender letters
An undercurve lead-in that climbs, turns left at the top and comes back down across its own rising line, leaving an enclosed loop. e is the same movement shrunk to midline height; the other five run to the top line.
Pointed lead-in letters
A straight, uncurved rise from the baseline that finishes in a sharp corner rather than a rounded turn. The point at the top is the whole identity of both letters, and rounding it is what turns r into n and s into e.
Arched overcurve letters
An overcurve lead-in: a shallow rise from the baseline that arches over at the midline before dropping to the baseline again. The arch is rounded in m and n, pointed in v, and used once as a launcher in x, y and z.
The four difficult connectors
Four letters conventionally finish high, at the midline, instead of dropping to the baseline: b, o, v, w. A letter following one of them has to begin from the midline, so its shape changes slightly. This is the single most common place cursive breaks down, and it is worth naming rather than leaving a child to discover it.
Capitals
Every cursive capital is drawn too, in the mainstream US form, so a name or a sentence comes out fully joined. Capitals vary more between programs than lowercase does, so if a school teaches a different form for a particular letter, that is the one to copy. The capitals that conventionally join the letter after them (A, C, E, H, J, K, L, M, N, R, U, X, Y and Z) do so on these sheets; the rest stand a little apart, which is how they are taught.
A cursive practice sheet
Every lowercase letter, in order, at grade 2 to 3 sizing.