School Handwriting Styles by Country

Why the same letter is taught differently

Every school system has to answer the same few questions about handwriting. Should young children start with upright print or with letters that already lean? Should letters carry small entry and exit strokes from the first day, so joining comes easily later, or should those be added only when joining begins? Should the joined style keep loops on tall letters, or drop them for speed?

Different answers produced different styles. None of them is wrong. A lowercase k with a loop, a k made of three straight strokes and a k with a little kick at the bottom can all be perfectly legible. What matters for a child is consistency: the shapes on the worksheet should match the shapes the teacher models on the board, so practice at home reinforces the classroom rather than competing with it.

The details below describe common practice. Individual schools, districts and teachers often adapt a style or choose a commercial scheme, so the best source for one child is always their own classroom.

United States: upright print or slanted print first

American schools mostly start with manuscript print and move to cursive later, but there are two broad families of print. The older and more common one is ball-and-stick: upright letters built from circles and straight lines, so a lowercase a is a circle with a stick on its right side and a d is the same circle with a taller stick. Programs such as Zaner-Bloser teach print in this upright shape, and many teachers like it because the parts are easy to name and copy.

The second family slants the print slightly and adds small tails to the ends of letters such as a, d, h, m, n and u. A D'Nealian-style print, for example, is designed so the step to cursive is shorter: the tails already lead toward the next letter, and joining becomes a matter of extending them. Teachers who prefer this approach point to an easier transition; teachers who prefer upright print point to simpler shapes for five-year-olds.

Cursive in the US also comes in two flavors. Traditional cursive keeps loops on tall letters (b, h, k, l) and on descenders (g, j, y), uses ornate capitals and joins nearly every letter in a word. Modern cursive, as many newer programs present it, trims the loops, simplifies the capitals and sometimes stands more upright. Both are taught today, and our traditional ball-and-stick sheets and slanted print with tails let you switch between the American print families and both cursive fonts.

The history behind American cursive

Two names come up whenever people talk about how their grandparents wrote. Spencerian script, developed by Platt Rogers Spencer in the mid-1800s, was an elegant, flowing hand with fine hairlines and shaded downstrokes. It was taught for business letters and bookkeeping in the decades before typewriters, and it survives today mostly in old documents and in calligraphy classes.

The Palmer Method, introduced by Austin Palmer toward the end of the 1800s, replaced that ornament with plainer, faster letters and drills that used the whole forearm rather than the fingers. It dominated American classrooms for much of the first half of the 1900s, which is why so many letters written by older relatives share its look. Neither system is a current school standard, but traditional US cursive still carries their loops and rhythm.

England and the rest of the UK: precursive, then joined

There is no single national handwriting model in England. The national curriculum describes what pupils should be able to do, such as forming letters correctly in Year 1 and beginning to join in Year 2, but it leaves the letter shapes to schools. Many schools buy a published scheme; others write their own policy.

Many English primary schools teach a precursive style first: separate letters that already carry an entry stroke from the line and an exit flick, so each letter is ready to join. Some schools start with plain print and add the joining strokes later. Joined-up writing is usually expected to grow through Years 3 and 4, and by the upper primary years many pupils write in a fully joined, mostly unlooped hand.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own curricula and, again, school-level choices. If you are making sheets for a UK class, the UK precursive practice sheets suit Reception and Year 1, and the UK joined-up handwriting sheets suit pupils who are already linking letters.

Australia: each state draws its own letters

Australia is the clearest case of style by region. Education departments in each state settled on their own handwriting style decades ago, and many schools still follow them, which is why Australian teachers so often look for a font in their own state's style. A family moving across a state border can see the letter shapes change.

The New South Wales style, usually called NSW Foundation, uses slightly sloping letters with print capitals and adds joins in the middle primary years. Queensland teaches a beginners alphabet with distinctive curved entries on letters like m and n before moving to a cursive. Victorian Modern Cursive leans forward and gives letters small exit flicks from the start, which makes later joining feel natural. South Australia teaches a precursive alphabet that grows into a modern cursive, and Tasmania has its own modern cursive too.

The details vary between schools even inside one state, so take the table as a broad guide. Sheets in the NSW Foundation style, the Queensland Beginners style, the Victorian Modern Cursive style or the South Australian style use fonts modeled on these styles, not materials issued by any department.

New Zealand, Canada and Ireland

New Zealand schools work from Ministry of Education guidance that sets out a simple print style for new entrants and a quick, slanted, partly joined style for older children. The emphasis falls on fluent, readable writing rather than on loops or decoration, and children usually move from the basic letters to joining over the middle primary years. The New Zealand style sheets follow that slanted look.

Canada has no national style, because education belongs to the provinces. Many Canadian classrooms use the same print and cursive programs as their American neighbors, and an older Canadian approach called the MacLean Method shaped the cursive many adults learned. Cursive teaching faded in some provinces and has returned in others, so the picture differs from Ontario to British Columbia; Ontario, for example, made cursive optional in 2006 and brought it back from Grade 3 in 2023. The Canadian-style cursive sheets follow that slanted, looped tradition.

In Ireland, national guidance allows cursive to begin as early as junior infants, and some schools teach a continuous cursive from then, with every letter starting on the line; most start with print or precursive letters and join from first class. Ask which approach the school uses before printing a stack of practice sheets, or start from the Irish-style cursive sheets.

Matching a style when a child changes schools

The common worry is that a new style will confuse a child who has just mastered the old one. In practice, children adapt fastest when adults focus on a few letters rather than everything at once. Compare the two alphabets side by side, circle the letters that really differ (often k, f, y and the joining strokes), and practice only those for a couple of weeks.

A tutor working with a Year 4 student who arrived from the US might keep the student's existing upright print for written work and practice only the new joins in short sessions. A homeschooling parent who follows no school can simply pick one style and stay with it; the choice matters less than sticking to it. Some families also meet a vertical, simplified style from a program like Handwriting Without Tears, which uses its own letter shapes and lined paper.

Whatever the style, the cursive and country style sheets all print at exact size on Letter or A4. If you want the background on the free fonts that make these styles possible, see the guide to free school handwriting fonts, and for typical ages read when children learn to write.