The cursive alphabet

All 52 letters of traditional US cursive, set in Playwrite US Trad, a school handwriting font, on the four lines children learn to write on. Open a letter to see how it is written, where it joins, and the same letter in ten other cursive fonts.

Make a practice sheet →Capitals

Type your own words: Cursive font generator →

01 / Lowercase

a to z, joined

Each small letter starts and ends where it meets its neighbours. The print letter is in the corner.

02 / Capitals

A to Z, capitals

The capitals change the most from print: Q looks like a 2, G and I share nothing with their print forms.

03 / How it is learnt

Letters in families

Many schools teach the small letters in families that start with the same stroke, and the capitals once those join.

Undercurve letters

Each starts on the baseline with a curve rising to the right.

i
t
u
w
e
l
b
h
f
k
r
s
j
p

Downcurve letters

Each starts just below the midline and curves back to the left into an oval, the way a c begins.

a
c
d
g
o
q

Overcurve letters

Each starts with a small hill, up over the midline and down, before its main stroke.

n
m
v
x
y
z

Four end high: b, o, v, w end at the midline, not the baseline, so the letter after them starts from there: “bo”, “ov”, “we”.
Some are finished last: Dot i and j, and cross t and x, after the whole word: stopping for them breaks the join.
10 capitals stand alone: B, D, F, I, O, P, S, T, V, W end away from the next letter, which starts with its own lead-in. The other 16 capitals join.

Practise them on a printable sheet →Print letters to trace →

All 118 free cursive fonts →