Cursive Connecting Letters: Joining Two Letters

Joins are the whole subject of this 2nd grade page. Five pairs of joined letters start five pairs of ruled lines, and each pair is followed by a word that contains it. On the sheet shown the pairs are br in bread, wa in wash, oa in boat, ve in five and ch in chair. The first line of each pair has a dark model at the margin, then the pair twice in grey and the word in grey to trace; the second line is empty, and the child writes the pair and the word again on it. The model is traditional cursive.

Most cursive letters join from the baseline, but four of these pairs do not. After b, w, o and v the pen leaves the letter high, at the midline, and has to travel across before dropping into the next letter. That high join is the one children get wrong, pulling it down to the baseline and changing the shape of the next letter. Practising the pair on its own, then inside a real word, fixes the movement before it becomes a habit. The ch pair is the ordinary baseline join, there for contrast.

One sheet, five pairs, five words. Watch the oa in boat: if the join drops, the a starts to look like a u. Children can make a list of other words with the same pairs and write them on the back. In the cursive writing family this page sits between single letters and whole words; the words face comes next.