Cursive handwritingGrades 2–4
Lowercase cursive letters
Prints the 26 small cursive letters, one per ruled line, with a dark first copy and grey copies to trace. It is for students who are learning how letters join inside words, usually in grades 2 to 4.
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On this page
What prints
The page is titled "Cursive Small Letters". Underneath, the instruction asks students to study the dark letter that opens a line, trace the grey copies, and keep the starting point identical each time.
There are 26 lines, a to z, and each line repeats its letter across the full width. The first copy is dark, and the rest are grey. Because the font joins letters on its own, each repeated letter links into the next one, so the line reads as a flowing chain rather than separate shapes. That is the point of the practice: the exit stroke of one copy becomes the entrance of the next.
Ruling on each line: a top rule, a dashed rule at small-letter height, and a baseline. Letters like a, c and e sit between the dashed line and the baseline. Tall letters such as b, d, h, k and l climb to the top line, and f, g, j, p, q, y and z drop below the baseline. Medium line size fits roughly ten lines on a page, so the set takes three pages, and the final page ends in blank lines.
These small letters use the open-licence Cedarville Cursive typeface by Kimberly Geswein (SIL Open Font License). It is natural teacher-style handwriting, not a school-adopted method, and it follows a single common style. Schools using Zaner-Bloser or D'Nealian may form a few letters slightly differently.
The settings
- Practice. "Letters A to Z".
- Letters. This page opens on "Small letters only". Switch to "Capital and small (Aa)" or "Capitals only" if you want a different mix.
- Line size. Opens on "Medium". "Large (beginners)" gives more space; "Small (confident writers)" fits about thirteen lines per page.
Practice ideas
Many teachers group small letters by their first stroke, so a student can learn a, c, d, g and o together because each starts with a curl against the clock. Others teach the letters that start from the baseline together. If you do not know a standard order, group by shape and let the chart guide you.
When a letter looks cramped, check the spacing between copies before the shape itself. Joining too tightly makes letters crowd, and joining too loosely breaks the flow.
For letter-by-letter detail, there is a page for each one, such as cursive m and cursive t, with short words that start with that letter. Once the alphabet feels comfortable, the cursive words worksheets take the same joins into real words.
Worked example: fixing the letter e
Jonah, nine, writes his small e as a closed loop that looks like an o. His father prints the sheet with Letters: Small letters only and Line size: Large, then uses only the e line and the lines for c and a.
Jonah traces the dark e once with his finger, saying "up, loop, back". On the grey line he traces eight copies, then adds two from memory at the right-hand end. Each day for a week he does the same line in three minutes. After that his father moves to Medium size, so the e he writes matches the size in his school notebook.
Last note
Small letters do the most work in cursive. A steady, even small a, c and e makes nearly every word look neater.
Sources
- Common Core State Standards: Language, Grade 1 (L.1.1.a, print all upper- and lowercase letters) thecorestandards.org
- Reading Rockets: Writing readingrockets.org