The Print ShopCursive
Printable cursive worksheets
7 sheets, from the first joined letter through to copying out a poem — including the one thing printing never needed, which is a page of joins. Every sheet traces first, then copies, then leaves an empty line.
Free · two paper sizes · no download
On the shelf now
Each of these is a page that is itself the worksheet — open it, press print, and that is the whole of it. Every sheet comes on US Letter and on A4, because a ⅝-inch rule shrunk to fit whatever is in the tray is no longer a ⅝-inch rule.
Letters
The shapes, which are not the printed ones, a sheet each.
- The cursive alphabet, capital and small — Every letter of the alphabet in cursive as a capital and a small letter, on ⅝-inch ruled paper: a solid model, a dotted letter to trace, and an empty space to write it alone.
- Cursive capitals — The twenty-six cursive capitals on ¾-inch paper, drawn hollow to trace inside and then written alone — the letters that are least like their printed shapes.
- Cursive small letters — The twenty-six small cursive letters on ⅝-inch paper with a dashed midline and room for the loops, traced twice and then written alone.
Joins
The stroke between two letters — the thing printing never needed.
- The joins, all six families — Thirty letter pairs on ⅝-inch paper, five from each family of join: diagonal and horizontal, into small letters and tall ones, into the round letters, and the pairs where the pencil lifts.
Words
A whole word without lifting the pencil.
- The days of the week — The seven days of the week in cursive on ⅝-inch paper, each one written as one unbroken word: a model, a dashed copy to write over, and an empty line.
Sentences and copywork
A whole line at a time, once the joins are no longer the work.
- Sentences to trace and copy — Four sentences on half-inch paper, chosen for the joins in them: each printed as a model, traced twice on the lines below, and then written on a line of its own.
- Copywork — a poem in cursive — The opening of “The Owl and the Pussy-cat” on ⅜-inch transitional paper: the line printed, two gray copies to write over, and an empty line to write it from nothing.
Three models, because there is no one cursive
The hands taught in different countries disagree about the two things a cursive sheet is for: whether an ascender loops, and which letters join.
- Looped — The traditional hand, with loops on the ascenders and descenders and a join out of every letter. What most American schools teach, and what every sheet here is set in.
- Unlooped — The same letters without the loops, and the model that lifts the pencil: b, f, g, j, p, q, s and y do not join to what follows them.
- Fully joined — The continuous hand a British primary school teaches: a lead-in stroke into every letter, no loops, and a join out of all twenty-six.
Picking one and calling it correct would tell somebody’s child their b joins wrongly, so the model is a choice rather than a decision made here. Which letters join to which is written into each face itself, so switching the model changes the joins on the page and not just the look of them — a sheet that separates ba in one hand joins it in another, and both are right.
The joins, and why they get a page
Six families, five pairs each, in the order every scheme teaches them.
- Diagonal joins — Up from the baseline into a small letter — the join under half the words in English. in, un, im, er, es
- Diagonal joins to a tall letter — The same climb, carried on up to the top line: ch, th and ck are this join. ch, th, ck, il, at
- Horizontal joins — Across at the midline, from the letters that finish at the top of their body — o, r, v and w. on, or, we, ve, ow
- Horizontal joins to a tall letter — The same stroke arriving at an ascender, which is where wh lives. wh, ol, ot, oh, rt
- Joins into a round letter — Into a, c, d, g, o and q, which are written anticlockwise and entered at the top. ea, oa, ua, ic, od
- Where the pencil lifts — The letters a model may not join out of. Which ones those are is the model's answer, not ours. ba, ge, ju, qu, ye
A letter can be practiced on its own; a join cannot. The stroke between two letters is only correct in the company of the letters either side of it, which is why in is a thing to practice and an i next to an n is not. It is also why a child who can form every cursive letter perfectly can still write a word that falls apart in the middle — the letters were never the missing piece.
The ruling is the size it says it is
Five handwriting sizes, three notebook rules, and squares, dots and triangles — any of them, with any of the letterforms above.
A ⅝-inch rule is ⅝ of an inch under a ruler or it is teaching the wrong size of letter, and a child who has been taught to write between two lines notices before an adult does. So the lines are drawn as real strokes at real distances rather than as a background tint — which also means they survive a printer with “background graphics” unticked, the setting most people never find and the reason ruled paper from elsewhere so often comes out blank.
Cursive asks one thing more of the paper than print does. In a looped hand the tail of a g drops below the baseline and comes back up to meet the next letter, so the loop is the road to the following letter rather than decoration — and a model with its loop clipped at the line would be teaching a join that stops halfway. The sheets here are ruled with a tail space, and the loops are drawn full depth. The loops on their own, as strokes before they are letters, have a sheet of their own on the penmanship shelf.
Printing first, joining after
Cursive is not where handwriting starts. A child who is still deciding which way round a b goes is not ready to join it to anything, and the printed sheets are the ones to be on until they are — the same progression, the same rulings, the same trace, copy and write.
Your own words in a joined hand
This week’s spellings off a note from school, a name to practice, a verse to copy out — the builder takes a typed or pasted list and prints it as any of the sheets above, in any of the three models, on any ruling, at any size. The settings travel in the link, so a sheet you make can be sent to another family as it stands.
The Name: line is printed blank and filled in with a pencil. Nothing is uploaded to make a sheet and there is nowhere in a shared link to put a child’s name — see what we don’t collect.
The rest of the Print Shop
Ten shelves and ten school years, over the same sheets. A shelf is what a sheet is; a year is who it was drawn for, which every sheet states on its own page.