Teaching Order

The Handwriting Without Tears® developmental teaching order is planned to help children learn handwriting skills in the easiest, most efficient way. As a result, children can transition quickly from learning the mechanics of handwriting to focusing on content and meaning—in all subjects. We teach printing first. After printing is mastered, we add the cursive connections.

Capitals to Lowercase

Developmentally, capitals are easier so we teach them first. The capital teaching order helps teach correct formation and orientation while eliminating reversals.

Learning capitals first makes learning lowercase letters easy. We teach lowercase c o s v w first because they are exactly the same as their capital partners, only smaller. By teaching capitals first, we have prepared children for nearly half of the lowercase letters that are similar in formation.

• Print Developmental Teaching Order

Print to Cursive

Children who master HWT print know where to start and end their letters and will transition easily to forming cursive letters and adding cursive connections. In cursive, we teach lowercase letters first.

The cursive teaching order is based on:

1. Familiarity of the letter
2. Mastery of the c stroke: c to c is a very important connection in cursive.
3. Difficulty of connections: four letters (o w b v) have a high ending stroke and often are difficult to connect to other letters.
4. Formation patterns: letters that use similar strokes are grouped together.

• Cursive Developmental Teaching Order