Reading and Writing #1

Photo credit: L0rents via Wikimedia

Learning Objectives: 

• Improving both reading and writing skills
• Practice in reading aloud to others
• Expressing one’s thinking and feeling through pleasing handwriting

Materials:

• Cursive Alphabet Chart
• Lined paper (Print your own from this template)

Tools:

• Your favorite books
• Pens (blue and black)

Steps:

1. Show alphabets, and examples of many styles of cursive writing (research online)
2. Encourage artistic and expressive pride in letter creating (No erasing in this class!)
3. Share some principles of handwriting analysis
4. Practice with cursive moves - hands in the air, then on lined paper:
   • circles across the page
   • up/down moves between lines, half and full
   • lumps and loops across the page, etc.
5. Take vowels and practice, repeating each across the page of lined paper, making sure a moment of hand and body relaxation follows each line. (a, e, i, o, u)
6. Practice five lower case consonants the same way as vowels above. (f, i, t, l, j) then put a few short words together using what’s been practiced: to, if, of, lot, it, let, etc.
7. Next practice consonants with downward loops the same way: (g, p, q,y,z)  Create some more words adding these to what’s been practiced in 5 & 6 above:( you, eat, yay, quote, zoo) etc…fill a line on paper with each.
8. Now practice upward loop lowercase letters, one line each across the page ( b, d, h, k,)  Create more short words, using the letters practiced this far: (bed, hat, pet, yell, no and not)
9. Break time to choose their favorite storybook--Read it aloud to someone else at home.
10. Return to activity with the words underlined (or copied on paper) that they found in the story, that they had practiced above.  This is a reminder that almost every word uses a vowel, so these are going to become very common, quick, and easy to do in writing stories in cursive!
11. Practice those cursive moves  from #4 above, standing in the air, then sitting  with some fresh lined paper
12. Now some practice in all the rest of the lower case letters--write a line of each: (c, m, n, r, s, v, w, x) “hump” letters both up and down(m, n, v, and w) take some time, so slow down if needed!   Looking back over all the practice papers, students can pick out their “favorite-best” and star * it for future reference. 
13. Uppercase letter practice happens in Activity 2!
14. Time now for students to pick their favorite complete sentence from the story they read, and copy it in cursive, as many times as they’d like, on lined paper.  For upper case letters, they can refer to their alphabet charts, and practice the ones they will need for this sentence first.   They may need reminding that the first word of every sentence will be capitalized, as will names and proper nouns. 
15. End activity with reading the sentences (from their papers!) to someone else at home.  
16. If they’d like to continue, they can do the same with sentences just before and just after their completed favorite sentence.  Then put a whole paragraph from the story on their own practice paper, for someone to read back to them!