Modern Slanted Print & Cursive Worksheets

How to make it

1. Type your wordsReplace the sample with a child's name, this week's spelling words or a short sentence. Each line you type becomes its own practice row on the sheet.
2. Set size and arrowsPick a letter height that suits the grade, then keep arrows on the first row, move them to the first letter or every letter, or switch them off.
3. Print or savePrint at actual size or download a PDF to send home. Copy link keeps this exact sheet ready for next week's lesson.

What sets this print apart from ball-and-stick

Most American children first meet letters as circles and straight sticks. The modern slanted alternative changes two things. The letters lean forward a little, the way a relaxed adult hand does, and many lowercase letters finish with a small upward curl at the baseline, often called a tail or, in classrooms, a monkey tail. The thinking behind a D'Nealian-style print is that those tails turn into joining strokes later, so cursive feels like an extension of what a child already writes rather than a second alphabet to learn from scratch.

The approach dates from the 1970s, when a teacher named Donald Thurber developed it as an alternative to vertical manuscript. Many letters are made in one continuous movement instead of separate pieces. On these sheets a, b, d, g, h, m, n, p, q, r, u and y are each one stroke, so a lowercase a is a curve that runs straight into its downstroke without a pencil lift. Letter shapes differ a little between published editions and between teachers, so treat ours as a close relative of the style rather than a copy of any program page.

Capitals change less. They take the same lean as the lowercase but keep familiar shapes, and they carry no tails, because in most US classrooms capitals are not joined to the letter after them until cursive, and sometimes not even then. If your school's capital forms differ from ours in a detail, such as the crossbar height on A or the way a J is hooked, show the class your version on the board and let the sheet carry the lowercase work.

How our slanted letters are drawn

These letters are not a font. Each one is built from our own stroke data: the same one-movement paths the upright print on this site uses, leaned 12 degrees. Ten lowercase letters gain a tail: a, d, h, i, k, l, m, n, t and u. Everything else keeps its plain ending, so the tails sit exactly where a child will later run on into the next letter.

On each traced copy a green dot shows where the pencil touches down, pink arrows point the direction of travel, and small numbers give the order when a letter needs more than one stroke, such as the cross on t or the dot on i. The dotted path runs along the middle of each stroke, so a child follows the route the hand should travel instead of tracing around the edge of a hollow shape.

From slanted print to cursive in the same generator

When a class is ready for joined writing, usually somewhere in second or third grade, open the Handwriting style menu. US cursive, traditional gives the looped, slanted hand many parents remember, with loops on tall letters and below the line. US cursive, modern stands upright with fewer loops and print-like capitals, a gentler step for children who find loops fussy. Both come from the free Playwrite family of school fonts, and the letters connect through the font itself as you type a word.

Two things change when you switch. Cursive rows are traced as a dashed outline of the font rather than along a center line, and the arrow and start-dot controls disappear, because we have stroke data only for print. A practical bridge is to print a slanted sheet with arrows for the letters being introduced, then a cursive sheet of the same words. For a full cursive unit, the cursive worksheet generator opens with the traditional style already chosen.

Settings from kindergarten to second grade

Size is the setting that matters most. Kindergarten writers usually do best at 1 inch or 3/4 inch, measured from the top line to the baseline, where a big arm movement still fits between the lines. By first grade 5/8 inch suits many children, and by second grade plenty are ready for 1/2 inch. These are starting points: watch a child write, and go up a size if letters keep spilling past the top line.

Arrows work like training wheels. Keep the preset First row, or choose Every letter, while a new group of letters is introduced, drop to First letter once the shapes are known, and turn them off when you want to see whether a child remembers the route alone. Start dots can stay longer, since a correct starting point is what keeps the slant and the tails consistent from one letter to the next.

Three tracing rows followed by one empty row is the default here. For a hesitant writer, try two tracing rows and two empty ones, keep the dark example first, and let the later rows fade so the final copy asks for a little more independence.

A first-grade week built on one word list

Say this week's list is hand, milk, tent, until, mud and lid, picked because every word is full of tailed letters. On Monday, print it with arrows on every letter and three tracing rows. Midweek, reuse the same words with arrows on the first letter only. By Friday, set tracing rows to one and empty rows to three for a quiet check of what has stuck.

Save the words with Save this list and they appear under My saved lists in every generator on the site, so Thursday's word tracing sheet or word search takes one click. The list stays in this browser and is never sent anywhere.

For a name sheet, type the child's name on several lines or turn on Repeat across the row. A copied link reopens the exact sheet, but it also carries the names after the # sign, so share it only with people who should see them, or use Share settings, which puts the example line in place of the names.

When a child arrives from an upright-print school

Families move, and a child taught vertical letters may land in a class that slants. Rather than forcing the change overnight, many teachers let the child keep familiar shapes, add the lean first and the tails a few weeks later. You can print the same words both ways: pick Print, ball-and-stick for one sheet and the slanted print for the next, and the child sees the two side by side. Our page of traditional ball-and-stick sheets covers the upright style in more depth.

For a wider picture of how print and joined writing are taught elsewhere, see handwriting styles by country, which compares the US approaches with those of the UK, Australia and New Zealand.