Now, we're going to look at handwriting and why handwriting is very important.
We need to make our handwriting different from the fonts.
This is a traditional, "Basic" handwriting practice guideline.
And, this is what I call a "Print" handwriting, where the letters stand up straight.
When you write your letters, you want to make them look like they were written with a hand.
And, the important thing in writing letters is to make sure that you write them
in a certain order in a certain way
so that they all look different and that when you write them fast and you
make natural, small mistakes it's still easy for people to know what you
were trying to write.
That's why the "q" has a tail, so it doesn't look it's an accidental "9".
That's why the "i" and the "j" face different directions.
And, this is also why the "d" has a tail, but the "b" does not.
We want all of our letters to look very different, even when we write them fast and make mistakes.
It's best to learn the letters this way, with a slight slant,
so that you can get really good control.
Now, this is an example of a double-story "a" and a double-story "g"
if that's what you want to do.
The reason I wrote this double-story "g" is because I went back and did my homework
and I found some of the handwriting examples from the Italian renaissance scollars.
And, they just liked to put big, beautiful tails on their "g"s
and the "upper counter", as we call it, just got really small
and that's how we got the double-story "g" in the Roman fonts.
And, this "a" technically starts kind of like an "s"...
...comes around...
But, I don't like to write them that way.
I like to write my "a"s this way...
So, here's an example of a good way to start practicing handwriting.
But, this third handwriting style, here, I call "Geometric"
because around the middle of the 1900s, teachers started to have the idea
that it's better if we do everything like a machine.
So, a font like this was used to teach children handwriting.
It was thought that if people could learn to write more like machines, that would be
better.
Well, many people disagreed.
And, I disagree.
But, when I made these — and I made all of these handwriting styles —
I also made this one to give you an example of what that looked like.
This is a geometric handwriting style, if you want one.
I don't recommend it.
I think that you should learn to write this way first...
And then, if you want to do printing, just stand them up...
This second "Print" handwriting style is exactly the same as the "Basic".
It's just standing up straight.
If you learn to write slanted, it's easier to move into cursive.
If you're not going to write cursive, writing straight up and down is easy for people to
read.
After you can do these, then — if you really want to —
you can learn a geometric handwriting style, but...
that's more artistic.
And, you still need to write it in a certain way so that
if you write your "b" really, really fast, people don't think that you tried to write
an "l" and an "o".
Or if you write your "d" very fast, but you make a mistake,
people won't think that you tried to write a "c" and an "l".
You still need to organize your letters so that when you make mistakes
people still know what you were trying to write.
This last handwriting style, on the bottom, is how I write my letters.
And, here, at the end, are some examples of how things could be a little bit different
if you want.
I write my letters this way because I don't like writing slowly.
I don't like picking up my pen.
And, I can talk more about that later.
Up here, at the top, I have the ascenders and the descenders
in this "magenta" color so that it's easy to see where the parts of
the letters are that go up and that go down.
Down here, we have this "cyan" guideline area.
And the solid and the dotted lines are how most Westerners learn to print their letters.
But, I think, when we are first learning the letters,
the parts of the letters that go up and down are separate.
Now, this "S" here, at the end, is what I call a "Helvetican S".
It's my own "S".
All these letters are my own design.
This captial "S" is a traditional textbook "S".
The small part is on the top and the bottom is larger.
And, the lower-case "s" is the same.
Now, how I write, I had this Helvetican "s".
And, I call it "Helvetican" because it is very similar to the Helvetica "S" style.
It's not perfect-circle, but has beautiful curves.
And, this is kind of a geometric "s" here.
But, I put this "S" at the end of the capital letters to give an example of
how you might write your "S".
Now, some people might disagree with this "Y".
But, I don't think a "Y" should be three strokes.
I think that a capital "Y" should be two strokes.
So, thi would be my capital "Y" and this would be a lower-case "y".
So, I'm not going to talk too much about the difference here.
But, I will say that the first basic letter to learn is an "a".
The shape of the lower-case "a" appears in the "b" and the "d"...
the "g", the "p", the "q"... and it's the most difficult to draw.
Also, we have the "e" and the "s".
These are very difficult.
A "d" is very similar to an "a".
So, in my curriculum, I suggest that the first word to write should be "pages".
I also suggest that when writing capital letters, start with "H" beecause
the idea of the different lines in the letters going down and then across
and then with the "I" makes the most sense to learn to write letters that way
so we know the basic stroke order.
Again, in English, stroke order is not very important.
In Asian languages, it's much more important.
But, the reason you want to use the correct stroke order with the letters
is so that when you write the letters fast and you make mistakes
people will see where your pen was moving, making its mistakes
and they'll be able to recognize what letters you were trying to write.
I've made this chart with two of the main writing styles.
The slanted "Basic".
And then the upright "Print".
And, I've added colored dots to make it easier for beginners to write the letters.
Start with green.
And then, go straight to yellow.
And then, finish writing in the proper order... and stop at the red dot.
Now, if you look closely... the green is a circle...
the yellow is a square... and the red is an octagon — shaped like
a stop sign.
This is intended to be printed off.
And, there are practice sheets with what I call "Guide Dots".
Now, my "A" here, starts with the green dot on the bottom.
That's because I think it's easier to draw an upside-down "V".
I don't think there is any reason at all to draw two lines.
I think the reason why teachers drew this capital printed "A"
starting form the top, both lines, is because teachers believed that
students weren't able to write it as easily starting at the bottom.
I disgaree, especially if we learn to write "H" first and then move to "I"
and then the other letters as is part of my curriculum that you'll see.
But, if you want, I wrote an example over here...
The "MAN" "NAM" difference.
I like to write capital letters "MAN" style.
Start with the green dot... yellow...
end on red.
"M" is one, solid stroke; you never lift your pencil.
So is it with "A", until you cross.
"N" is also the same.
The way many schools teach is what I have here as the "NAM" style...
backwards... that's where you start at the green dot and
go down... pick up your pencil...
move all the way up to the top... try to get it back onto the same spot...
hope there isn't a space... and then go down and up.
Now, I don't know why we shouldn't pick up our pencil again and always go down
since we're doing that.
But, that doesn't make sense to me anyway.
There's the "A", start with the green dot at the top
and then pick up your pencil and do it again.
That's how many in school are taught.
I don't agree, but this is it if you want it for reference.
And, again, the "M" is the same... green dot...
go down to the yellow...
go back up again... and the rest is a continuous stroke.
Which, again, doesn't make sense to me.
But, this is here for reference.
I do it "MAN" style as opposed to "NAM" style.
So, here I have the slanted printed letters.
Here I have the upright printed letters.
And, here are some guidelines.
And, this is a reference sheet.
Here, on the website, you'll see several other places you can look at.
And, here we have the capital letters.
I suggest this is the best order to start writing.
First teach "H", then "I", "F", "E", then do all the capital letters.
And, then start with just the words "pages" and "send".
And, if you want to just practice the "p" and just practice the "a",
print off several copies.
All of these are intended to be printed.
Teach the letters in this order and only at the end
do you get to the full, basic alphabet.
Each of these clicks on a Google document.
And, then later on, after you get the dots with the stroke order
— these all have Guide Dots — then, here are some practice sheets.
And, some of these have the letters others are just blank.
And, they're different sizes.
But, for each version of the letters you can practice writing on top of
there is a blank version.
The number tells how many lines there are.
So, more lines means smaller lines.
And, you can click around and get everything you need.
If you want to have my Guide Dots for all of the five handwriting styles I made
here it is right here.
I'll leave that up to you and you can explore this as you like.