Cursive handwritingGrades 2–4
Cursive A
A one-letter cursive page for A and a, with a big model, tracing lines for both cases, and three practice words. It suits children in grades 2 to 4 who are starting cursive.
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On this page
Small a is usually the first cursive letter a child meets, because it opens the oval family and shows up in nearly every sentence. Capital A, by contrast, looks little like the print A with its pointed top.
What prints
The page opens with a big model of Aa in cursive, with the print forms and the three words (apple, ant, arm) printed beside it. Below that come ruled lines, each marked by a thin upper rule, a dashed middle rule and a bold baseline. Lines one and two carry the capital A, lines three and four carry the small a. On the first line of each pair only the first copy is dark, with grey ones after it, and the second line is grey from start to finish.
Letter shapes are set in Cedarville Cursive, a font by Kimberly Geswein with a natural, teacher-style hand. It follows no official school method, so a classroom may form a few shapes differently. On the model, capital A is a rounded, oval shape, much like a tall version of the small a.
The settings
- Line size: Large for a first week of cursive, Medium for most grade 2 to 4 writers, Small once the shapes are steady.
- Letter: swap in any other letter; the page opens on A a.
How to form small a
Start just below the midline on the right side of where the letter will sit. Swing up and over to the left, then curve down and around so the oval touches the baseline. Come up the right side to the midline, retrace straight down the same line to the baseline, and finish with a short upward flick to the right. The retraced stroke is what keeps the oval closed.
How to form capital A
Begin a little below the top line and curve counterclockwise, down and around, until the stroke touches the baseline, much as you would draw a big oval a. Then go back up the right side, bring the line straight down to the baseline, and end with a small exit stroke. These are the common Zaner-Bloser style steps. D'Nealian and the model on the sheet may shape some capitals differently, so defer to the teacher if there is one.
Letter group and joins
Small a belongs to the curve-forward or oval group, along with c, d, g, o and q. All of these begin with the same counterclockwise curve, so a clean a helps five other letters.
The flick at the end of a is an upstroke that carries straight into the next letter, so joins from a are easy. The reverse is trickier: letters that finish at the top need extra care before they reach a, as in the word oak.
Practice tips
The most common error is an oval left open at the top, which turns a into a u or a pair of lines. Another is skipping the retrace and drawing a separate stick, so a looks like cl. Third, some children make the oval too large, which pushes it above the dashed midline. Check that small a stops at the dashed line.
Worked example: writing ant
Dev, age eight, wants to write the word ant. On the 'ant' row he traces the dark copy first, saying 'round, up, down, flick' as he makes the a. He sees that the flick leads to the n without lifting his pencil, and that the n's first stroke begins at the baseline, right where the a finished. He then writes ant alone on the spare line at the bottom, and compares the three a's to the model by checking each one touches the dashed midline.
Next steps
Short sessions beat long ones. Tomorrow, cursive b is the natural step. Before this letter, you may want the cursive alphabet chart.