Reading and Writing #2

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. 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.
2. Use Upper-case (round) (A, C, O) letters and practice, repeating each across the page of lined paper, making sure a moment of hand and body relaxation follows each line.  (Shaking out fingers and hands, practicing letters with the whole hand/arm, in the air.)
3. Practice Upper case J and I as in #2, to practice upward loops.
4. Practice “humps and valley” letters (M, N, U, V, W) at least one line each, and finally create a line each of the “oddball” letters ( B, D, E, F,  G, H, K, P, Q, R, S, T)  Go back when finished with entire alphabet practice, and star* their best-favorites.
5. Now students should stand away from paper and pens, and practice each of the letters they just learned “in the air” with hands and arms out front of their bodies.  Relax!
6. Take out a storybook, read out loud to a listener at home, then look for their favorite sentence, and when finished reading, sit down and write out that sentence on lined paper, in cursive.  
7. As they did in Activity 1, students should read this sentence aloud to someone else, then see if literate readers can read their cursive version. Legibility Counts!
8. 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!