Cursive alphabet

Every capital and lowercase cursive letter with numbered strokes and arrows. Watch a pen write any word live with a beat, put one giant letter on the projector for a warm-up, let children trace it on the board, and print the chart or tracing pages.

How to use it

Tap a letter in the grid. The green 1 is where the pencil starts and the arrow shows which way it goes; press Watch it drawn (W) to see it written stroke by stroke. Choose Upright, Light, Standard or Strong slant to match your school.
Open Write it live and type a word, a name or a spelling word. A pencil writes it in joined cursive, with a 3, 2, 1 count-in, a soft scratch and a tick at every stroke, so the class can air-write along. Space draws one stroke at a time.
Open Present (P) for one giant letter. The arrow keys move through a letter family, T lets a child trace it with a finger, and W runs a hands-free warm-up for 1, 3 or 5 minutes. Under Print on the chart, choose the one-page chart or the tracing pages, then Letter or A4.

Ideas for class

Start the day with the three-minute warm-up in Present mode: the pen writes a letter, the Your turn ring gives the class four seconds to write it in the air, and the next letter comes on its own.
Type this week's spelling word into Write it live, turn on Count in, and have the class write it in the air in time with the ticks. Then switch the ink to Rainbow and do it again.
Turn on Words under the pen so the screen says up, around, down as the pen moves, and have the class say the words out loud while they air-write.
Let one child at a time trace the big letter on the interactive board with Trace it (T). The checkpoints light up as they go and a finished letter earns up to three stars.
Teach letters in families that share a first stroke: press 1 to 4 in Present mode for the oval letters (a, c, d, g, o, q), the upstroke letters (i, t, u, w, j, p, s), the hump letters (n, m, r, v, x, y, z) and the loop letters (l, h, k, b, f, e).
Print the one-page chart with stroke numbers for a desk strip or a reference sheet in each student's handwriting folder.
Turn on Tracing letters fade across the row: the dotted letters go from dark to light and the last few spaces are left for the child to write alone.
Paste your class list in the practice sheet maker and print one name page per student, then print pen license cards for the day each child earns one.
Turn on Ink saver for a draft you will photocopy, and the lines and stroke marks print grey.

Questions

Which cursive style is this?

A simplified model of connected cursive, with the letters drawn for this site. It follows the common shapes but is not any one school program: D'Nealian, Zaner-Bloser and Handwriting Without Tears differ in how a few letters are made, especially the capitals F, I, Q and Z. The slant setting (Upright, Light, Standard or Strong) gets you closer to your program, but check the letters against its chart and tell students which to use.

What do the numbers and arrows mean?

Each stroke of a letter has a green number where the pencil goes down and an arrow showing which way it moves. Stroke 1 is the main letter; crosses (the bar of a t or f) and dots come after, the way children are taught to write them. Turn Stroke numbers and arrows off to show a single green start dot instead, or turn both off for a plain chart.

What is Write it live?

Type any word, name or spelling word and a pencil writes it in joined cursive. It can count in with three beats, plays a soft pencil scratch that rises and falls with the pen's speed, ticks at the end of every stroke and chimes when the word is done, so a class can air-write in time. Choose a slow, medium or quick pace, pencil, blue pen or rainbow ink, and words under the pen such as up, around and down.

How does the warm-up in Present mode work?

Press W (or Start warm-up). The pen writes a letter big, then a Your turn ring counts down four seconds while the class writes it in the air, then the next letter comes. It runs on its own for 1, 3 or 5 minutes through a letter family, all lowercase letters, all capitals, or the words from the practice sheet maker. Space pauses it and W stops it.

Can children trace the letters on the screen?

Yes. In Present mode press T. A child traces the big letter with a finger, a stylus or the mouse, starting at the pulsing circle. Checkpoints along the stroke light up as they pass them, and a finished letter plays a sparkle and shows one to three stars for staying on the line. Space finishes a stroke for anyone using the keyboard. Nothing is recorded.

What are the keyboard shortcuts?

Everywhere: F full screen and Esc to leave it. On the chart: W watches the letter drawn and P opens Present mode. In Write it live: Enter writes the word, Space draws the next stroke, R replays, L loops, 1 2 3 set the pace and M turns sound on or off. In Present mode: the left and right arrows change letter, Space writes it again, T traces, W starts or stops the warm-up, 1 to 6 choose a letter family, L switches capital and lowercase, N numbers, S start dots and M sound.

Why does the chart look like drawn lines and not like a font?

Each letter is a set of single-stroke paths, not a font. That is how the page can number the strokes, move a pen along them, check a child's tracing and print the letters as dots to trace. Nothing is downloaded, and it keeps working without internet once the page has loaded.

Can I print for left-handed students?

Yes. The sheets work for either hand. Tell left-handed students to tilt the paper clockwise, so the slant runs along the arm, and try the Light or Upright slant if your program allows it.

Is anything about my students stored?

No. The words you type stay in this browser, and the Share link carries the settings after the # sign, which is never sent to our servers. A class list pasted into the practice sheet maker is kept only in this browser and is never put in the Share link. Tracing is not recorded.

Is it free to print and copy for my class?

Yes. There is no sign-in, no ads and no watermark apart from a small credit line at the foot of the page.

Nothing you do here is sent to us. Names, lists and settings stay in this browser. No sign-in, no ads.

Teaching cursive from a chart

A chart tells students what the finished letter looks like. What they need to learn is where the pencil starts and the order of the strokes, and that is what the numbers, the arrows and the moving pen are for. A short, daily routine works better than a long weekly one: ten minutes, one letter family, and the same steps each day.

A ten-minute routine

Warm up. Run the three-minute warm-up in Present mode with today's letter family. Students write each letter in the air during the Your turn countdown.
Watch and say it. Show the new letter big and press Space to write it again. Turn on Words under the pen and say the strokes out loud (“up, around, down”).
Trace on the board. Two or three students trace it on the interactive board with Trace it.
Trace, then write. Students trace the dotted letters on a tracing page, then write three on their own line.
Circle the best one. Students circle their best letter on the line. Looking for quality, not counting letters, is what improves handwriting.

Letters that go together

Teaching letters in families that share their first stroke makes each new letter feel familiar. In these letterforms, a, c, d, g, o and q start with the same oval; i, t, u, w, j, p and s start with the same upstroke; n, m, r, v, x, y and z start with a hump or a bridge; and l, h, k, b, f and e start with a loop. Present mode keeps these four families on the keys 1 to 4. Capitals are best taught after the lowercase letters in a student's name.

Joining letters

Once single letters are steady, write whole words live. The pen shows that the pencil stays down from letter to letter, and that the i is dotted and the t crossed after the word is finished. The practice sheet maker's join drill prints every join out of one letter (ba, bb, bc and so on), which is where letters that leave from up high, like b, o, v and w, need the most practice.

Left-handed writers

Left-handed students often smudge dotted letters and cover what they are writing. Tilt the paper clockwise, check that the pencil is gripped higher up so the hand does not drag through the lines, and give them the chart on their left, not their right, so they can see it past the hand.