Tricky Joins Chart
The joins and habits that make cursive smooth and easy to read.
Need more than one? Tap + for extra copies (up to 10).
How to do it
- Read each box.
- Look at how the model letters join.
- Trace the examples with your finger.
Teaching tip
Keep the chart nearby while your student works on the other pages.
About this chart
Six things that make cursive smooth and easy to read: joins after b, o, v and w, loops, tails, lifting to dot and cross, capitals and spaces between words, each with a model.
What kids practice
Cursive fluency is writing in cursive smoothly and neatly enough that it's easy to read, without stopping to think about each letter. In 3rd grade, students learn the letters and trace words and sentences. These pages move on to copying from a model, turning print into cursive and writing for speed. They use the same traditional US school cursive style as 3rd grade. Common Core doesn't cover cursive, so these sheets have no Common Core code.
Watch for
- Dropping down to the baseline after b, o, v or w, which makes the next letter look wrong.
- Lifting the pencil in the middle of a word.
- Crowding words together with no space between them.
- Rushing so much that the writing gets hard to read.
It's free to print, as many copies as you need. See the full cursive fluency guide for 4th grade.
More sheets in this set
2. Tricky Joins PracticeJoins like oa, br, ve and wi with a word that uses each one, like boat, zebra, river and winter, to copy from the model. Fewer, Standard or More give 6, 8 or 10 lines.
3. Copy the WordsLonger words like breakfast, volcano and yesterday shown once in cursive, to copy twice with no tracing. Fewer, Standard or More give 7, 9 or 11 words.
4. Names and PlacesTwo names, two days, two months and two states to copy in cursive, plus a box to practice signing your own name.
5. Copy the SentenceLonger sentences like "Quentin practices piano every afternoon." shown in cursive, to copy with no tracing. Fewer, Standard or More give 4, 5 or 6 sentences.
6. Copy the ParagraphSix short paragraphs, like "Snow Day" and "The Night Sky," shown in cursive with lines to copy them.
7. Print to CursiveSentences in regular print to write in cursive with no model. Fewer, Standard or More give 5, 6 or 8 sentences; More uses smaller lines.
8. Timed Cursive Writing"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," which uses every letter of the alphabet, to copy as many times as you can in 2 minutes, with a word count and a neatness checklist.