Cursive loops and ovals worksheets

The two loops are why this sheet exists apart from the print one. A joined l, h or b begins by climbing to the top line and coming back down through its own stroke, and a joined g, j or y does the same below the baseline; print never draws either, so a child who has printed for three years has never made the shape. The tail loops need room under the lines, which is why this paper has a descender space and the rule is half an inch.

Everything on this page is meant to be drawn without lifting the pencil — the row of circles is one line that goes round and round, and the row of waves is one line that never stops — because that is the thing cursive asks of a hand that printing never did. The strokes are drawn as shapes rather than as letters, so they are the same in every cursive model; what changes with the model is the letters they will be joined into. The first row of each stroke is traced and the second is the child's own.

The rules are drawn as real strokes at real sizes, and what goes on them is set to the ruling: a letter stands on the baseline and reaches the top line, and a stroke pattern is drawn between the same lines the letter it belongs to would be. The type size is worked out from the ruling and from the font’s own measured proportions rather than picked to look about right. Put a ruler on it. The ruling is the size it says it is.

Practice only improves writing when the child judges it. A row of the same letter written ten times is ten letters; a row written five times and then looked at, with the best one circled, is a decision about what a good letter is — and the decision is what carries to the next page, not the repetitions. Copying is the weakest way to learn a letter, writing it from memory after looking at a model is stronger, and judging your own against the model is the step that makes the practice count.

So use any sheet on this shelf the same way, whether or not it says so. Look at the model together and say what makes it right — where it starts, where it stops, how tall it stands. Write, without tracing where there is nothing to trace. Then choose: which one is closest, and why. The circle-your-best sheet makes that the whole exercise; on the others it is the last minute, and the minute that matters.

This sheet is set for US Letter — 8.5 × 11 inches. Paper size is not a preference on a ruled sheet: sent to a printer loaded with something else, the browser shrinks the page to fit, and a ruling that has been shrunk is no longer the size it was chosen for. So there is a second copy of this sheet, ruled identically and measured for A4.