One
of the lessons that often gets lost in a teacher's busy school day is penmanship. Arguably, cursive is less
important with the advent of computers. Legible handwriting is not nearly as
prized as it was when students wrote more and typed less. Older people remember
spending hours practicing manuscript and cursive writing. And their penmanship
was neater.
This isn't a debate over the validity of teaching cursive or handwriting skills. Teachers should at least look for neatness in
schoolwork. Here are free printable handwriting worksheets, manuscript writing
practice pages and cursive penmanship worksheets. Use free printable manuscript
(printing letters) and cursive writing worksheets.
There
are different methods and styles for teaching penmanship. Zaner-Bloser style is
the older handwriting style in which printed letters are written vertically
with no slant. Then D'Nnealian came into vogue in the early 1980s. D'nealian
manuscript (printed letters) are written at a slant with more rounding of
letters. D'nealian is more comfortable to write and works with the curves of
the hand and body. D'Nealian print also transitions to cursive writing better.
Here are free printable penmanship lessons for both styles of handwriting
worksheets.
Writing
Wizard has many free printable
handwriting worksheets and writing practice pages for manuscript (print) and cursive writing
practice pages. There are upper and lower case letters. You can print pages
with single letters to practice. Kids Zone has really nice free printable handwriting worksheets and
writing practice pages. The
letters are grouped according the movements needed to write them. For example,
there are the "rockin" round' letters and the "up the slide
letters." This site is very kid-friendly. There are gobs more free
printable writing and reading lessons on printing, tracing, alphabet, Dolce
sight words, phonics, poetry and more.
Handwriting
for Kids has a collection of free printable penmanship writing practice
pages and handwriting
worksheets. Look for cursive writing practice pages on this site. Home
Education Resources has a great assortment of free printable penmanship lessons and handwriting worksheets. Each of the
cursive handwriting worksheets has a coloring picture on it. Children love to
color the pictures when they have finished their handwriting practice. Make the
coloring page a reward. When they have shown you their five best examples of the
letter, they get to color the pictures.
Handwriting
may be a lost art, but it will probably always be needed to some extent. Use
these free printable handwriting practice pages as lesson plans, in homeschool
or tutoring.
