- Hello, I'm Virginia Henderson.

Welcome to Cursive Handwriting.

In this series, you're going to learn how to write both the lowercase and capital letters.

In the cursive handwriting method, you have been using the manuscript method, which is what you probably are calling printing.

Looking at the word manuscript, you can see that the letters are written straight up and down, and that each letter is written by itself so that you have to lift your pencil after writing each letter.

In the cursive handwriting method, as you see in the word cursive, the letters are all connected, which means that you do not lift your pencil after making each letter.

The letters are also slightly slanted to the right.

Now, let's take a trip around town and look at some signs that I'm sure you have seen very often.

I want you to compare the manuscript sign with the cursive writing as it appears.

I am sure you observed lots of differences in the cursive and manuscript methods of handwriting.

In order to do your very best handwriting, it's important that you sit correctly and that you hold your pencil and paper in the correct positions.

First, you need to face your desk squarely.

Sit back in your chair, but don't let the your back touch the back of the chair, but keep your back nice and straight.

If your right-handed, you will hold your pencil between your thumb and index finger with it resting slightly on the middle finger for support about an inch from the point about two thirds of the way back.

The pencil should rest on the large knuckle of your hand.

The back of the pencil should point toward your right shoulder.

Your paper should be turned so that the bottom left hand corner is pointing toward you, and you should hold the top of your paper with your left hand.

If you are left-handed, you will hold your pencil a little more than an inch from the point.

This will give you more room to see what you're writing, again, between the thumb and the index finger, resting it against the middle finger and against the large knuckle.

About two thirds of the way back, the end of the pencil should point away slightly from your left shoulder.

Again, you should turn the paper so this time, the bottom right hand corner is pointing toward you and hold it at the top with your right hand for support.

We're going to look at all of the lower case cursive letters now, and they have been divided into three groups depending on which gr, which way they begin.

Down here on the paper, we have what we call the baseline, the midline, and the top line, which we'll call the headline.

The first group is going to begin at the midline and curve down around to the baseline in this manner.

Let's look at these letters.

Here we have the A, the letter D, and the letter C. G is also in this group as well as the O and the Q. The next group is going to begin this time at the baseline and curve over to the midline before it pulls down.

Now we want to look carefully for these beginnings.

The M is in this group, the N, the V. Look carefully now how they are beginning the Y, the X, and the Z. The third group is the largest group, and they begin at the baseline and curve up to the midline.

Some of these letters will be slightly taller and will curve up higher, but you can watch for these.

Alright, the I comes just to the midline, as does the U, the E and the W. The J goes below the baseline.

The T goes slightly above the midline, and so does the letter P. These are the tall letters and they go clear up to the headline with that beginning under curve.

This last group has the letter R as well as the letter F and the letter S. This is the chalkboard that we'll be using for every lesson.

Notice that we have a baseline, a midline, and a headline to use as our guide.

We are going to begin practicing for making letters by starting with an oval that begins at the baseline and curves up to the headline and pulls down, and we're going to do this to the count of eight.

That would be 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and eight.

I would like for you to hold your pencil in the air and write this with me as I trace over it.

Ready?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Now get in your writing position.

Put your pencil on the baseline and we're going to try this.

Ready Write.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Let's try one more.

Ready, right.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Now we're going to do the under curve, which begins the same way as this oval at the baseline, curving up to the midline, and I'm going to do four of these.

This would be two, three, and four.

Alright, I'd like for you to hold your pencils in the air and write this with me as I trace it.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Now sitting tall, put your pencil on the baseline and let's try it on your paper.

Ready?

Write 1, 2, 3, 4.

The next stroke that we're going to do is the slant and it will begin at the midline.

Pull down to the baseline.

We'll lift a pencil and do another set of four of these.

Try to space them evenly apart and make sure they have a sl to the right.

Hold your pencil in the air and write this with me as I trace it beginning at the midline.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Now try it on your paper.

Ready, right, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Now we're going to look at some more signs and compare the manuscript and cursive handwriting.

I would like for you to continue to observe the differences in manuscript and cursive handwriting and to practice the oval, the under, and the slant.

I'll see you in the next lesson.