Cursive Sentences

Where the joins have to survive a whole line

Each sentence prints in PW Cursive with a model row and copy rows underneath, on four-line ruling. This is the sheet after single words, and the difficulty is different in kind rather than in degree.

What a sentence adds

Three things a word sheet never tests.

Stamina. Joined writing is tiring before it is automatic, and handwriting visibly deteriorates towards the end of a line. That decline is the thing to look at — if the first three words are neat and the last two are not, the problem is endurance rather than letterforms, and the answer is shorter sessions rather than more correction.

Spacing between words. Within a word the joins set the spacing for you. Between words nothing does, and children either run everything together or leave gaps you could park in. The usual rule is a gap about the width of one letter.

Capitals and full stops. A sentence needs a capital that mostly does not join and a full stop that gets forgotten, and both only come up at this level.

Read the line, do not just look at it

The most useful marking question is whether you can read it at normal speed without slowing down. Handwriting is a communication tool, and legibility at speed is the only standard that matters outside a handwriting lesson.

Neatness is a different thing and it is over-weighted. A slightly untidy hand that reads instantly is better than a laboured, beautiful one that takes ten minutes a paragraph.

Use sentences worth writing

The preset loads affirmations about careful writing, which are fine and are not what a child will remember.

Better: a sentence from the book they are reading. A line from a poem. Something they said themselves that you wrote down. The sentence is going to be copied several times, so it may as well be worth having in their head.

Keep it to eight or ten words. A long sentence wraps, and a wrapped line breaks the practice at exactly the wrong point.

Setting it up

Practice text, the cursive face (GB or US), trace style, rows per sentence, ruling colour and line height. A4 or US Letter.

Two or three sentences a page. Print at 100%.