How to Teach Kids to Identify Cursive Letters

Teaching kids to write in cursive can be difficult. When kids see a lot of different letters once, it can be hard for them to pick out individual letters as they read. For kids who are just learning letters, cursive writing looks like a stream of loops and bumps. This is especially true when students are asked to copy a word or several letters after they’ve learned a handful of letters. 
 
This activity on teaching kids to identify cursive letters is part of our 31 day series on how to teach cursive handwriting. Be sure to check out all of the articles in the series. There is a lot of great information on cursive writing to be found and shared!
Use this cursive handwriting activity to help kids learn to write cursive letters and identify cursive letters.
 


Cursive letter identification Activity


Children who struggle with visual discrimination can really find cursive letter identification a challenge. Pulling those letters from a strand of letters can really be difficult for a child who is not able to discriminate between a cursive letter “n” and a cursive letter “m”.
 
That’s why today on the OT toolbox you’ll see the cursive letter identification activity below. This is an easy way for kids who are just learning cursive letters to identify different person letters individually. 
 
Use the cursive letter identification activity to help kids visually scan and identify cursive letters. This is a great way for new cursive writers to learn to read and identify letters in a stream of written work. 


Help kids learn the difference between cursive letters by asking them to first, write out cursive letters on small scraps of paper. They can trace over the letters several times in various colors like in this rainbow writing activity or color changing marker activity.
 
Then, use clothespins that have been marked with printed letters to match the cursive letters.
 
Visually scanning for the correct letter addresses several visual perceptual skills, including visual discrimination, figure ground, visual attention, and form constancy.
 
Use this cursive handwriting activity to help kids learn to write cursive letters and identify cursive letters.
This type of activity can help kids identify small differences that make a big difference when it comes to cursive letters. When they see the difference between the “b” and the letter “l” in matching activities, students can become more cognizant of the individual letter differences between like letters when copying from a model or strings of letters in practice.


The same is true for letters of different sizes such as lowercase letter “e” and lowercase “l” when kids see the difference in height they can recognize that difference and be more able to form the letters accurately on paper when writing. 
 
If these two letters are a challenge for students to differentiate, add lines to the paper scraps. You can even cut a line of wide rule paper to use as the scrap squares.
 
Use this cursive handwriting activity to help kids learn to write cursive letters and identify cursive letters.




Looking for more ways to help kids learn cursive handwriting? check out these ideas that we’ve done on The OT Toolbox in the past.
Use this cursive handwriting activity to help kids learn to write cursive letters and identify cursive letters.