Victorian Modern Cursive Style Worksheets

How to make it

1. Add your wordsType spelling words, a class sentence or a poem line. Words come out joined in the Victorian style; separate letters need a space between them.
2. Pick size and rowsChoose from 50 mm down to 10 mm (2 down to 3/8 inch), set traced and empty rows, and decide whether the first copy is dark.
3. Print or savePrint at actual size or keep a PDF. Copy link returns you to this exact page, and the footer's sheet number tells you which one you printed.

What is Victorian Modern Cursive?

Victorian Modern Cursive is the handwriting style taught in many government and independent schools in Victoria. Its central idea is that print and joined writing are one hand rather than two. From Foundation, children learn letters with a slight forward slope and small exit strokes, sometimes called flicks, at the end of letters such as a, d, h, m and n. Because those strokes are already in place, joining later is mostly a matter of letting the flick run on into the next letter instead of lifting the pencil.

Other features commonly described: letters are oval and fairly narrow rather than round, ascenders and descenders are plain sticks without loops, capitals are simple and usually not joined, and the slope is gentle rather than dramatic. Schools typically move from separate letters to joined writing over the middle primary years. The exact timing and some letter details vary between schools and teachers, so the chart on your classroom wall is the final word.

The font behind these sheets

The letters here come from Playwrite AU VIC, one of the Playwrite school fonts designed by TypeTogether and published on Google Fonts. Its designers describe it as a modern cursive that includes elements of continuous cursive; one visible detail is that f is the only lowercase letter with a loop. Letters join through the font's own connecting strokes as you type, which is what makes it useful for joined practice.

It is a careful interpretation of the style, not a reproduction of a departmental chart, and nobody has certified it as such. If a letter on the sheet differs from the version your school teaches, say k or the tail of y, point it out to students and have them write the school version in the empty rows. If you are searching for a Victorian Modern Cursive font download for your own documents, Playwrite AU VIC is free under the SIL Open Font License; the commercial fonts sold under the style's name are separate products we do not offer. Our guide to free school handwriting fonts explains how to install it.

Dotted thirds and the lines on this page

Victorian classrooms often use dotted thirds paper, which divides the writing space into three bands so that ascenders, the body of letters and descenders each get a share. Choose Dotted thirds under Guide lines to print exactly that: a solid top line, a dotted midline, a dotted baseline and a solid line under the tails. The default gray lines give a similar split with a dashed midline at the font's x-height and a solid baseline; with Playwrite AU VIC the three spaces are very nearly equal either way.

You can change the look under Guide lines: Gray for photocopies, Blue and red if your students are used to a colored baseline, or 3 lines to drop the descender guide. For blank practice pages in the same proportions without any letters, use the handwriting paper generator.

Joins, separate letters and the missing arrows

Type a word and the font joins it. Type letters with spaces, such as a c d g o q, and they stay separate, which is what Foundation children need while they learn each shape with its exit flick. A mixed sheet works well in Year 2: one line of separate letters from a letter group, then a line of short words using the same letters joined.

Traced copies appear as a dashed outline with a white center, so joins look clean. What the font rows cannot show is the order and direction of each stroke. There are no start dots or arrows on Victorian style sheets, because a font stores outlines, not movement. Our print styles do carry arrows, but they are upright American print, so for Victorian letters it is better to model the movement on the board and let the sheet provide the repetition.

Left-handed writers deserve a word here. Many teachers let left-handers tilt the paper the other way and accept a slightly more upright slope, as long as it is consistent. The sheet itself does not change for left-handers, but you can help by leaving Repeat across the row off, so each row holds one copy and there is less on the page for a resting hand to smudge. Sitting a left-hander on the left end of a shared desk also stops elbows from colliding. Teaching in Adelaide instead? The South Australian style sheets follow that state's letter shapes.

A Year 3 and 4 copywork routine

By Year 3 most children are joining much of their writing, and the work shifts from letter shapes to fluency, consistent slope and even size. Copywork suits this stage. Choose a short poem, a line from the class novel or a fact from the current science topic, type it as one or two sentences, and set the size to 13 mm (1/2 inch). One traced copy and two empty rows is enough at this age; the point is to write it alone with the model in view.

Rotate topics weekly and keep the sheets short. Many teachers set copywork as a calm start to the morning, five to ten minutes, rather than a long lesson. In Year 4, try 10 mm (3/8 inch) with just the dark model, a single traced copy and three or four empty rows below. The sentence tracing worksheets page offers the same layout with copywork defaults, and the Victorian style is in its style menu.

Names in Victorian Modern Cursive style

A child's name joined for the first time is often a proud moment. In the name tracing generator, choose Australia: Victorian Modern Cursive style, and paste the class list one name per line. One page per name is already on, so each child gets a page, all in one PDF. Check the first letter of a few names in the preview, since capitals are where school charts and fonts most often disagree.

Class lists are kept on this device only if you save them, and copied links carry the names after the # sign, so treat a shared link like the list itself. For context on how Victoria's approach compares with the rest of Australia, the UK and the US, see handwriting styles by country.