Penmanship for Christian Writing

As listed in Rod and Staff's 2011 Catalog


Good penmanship, a necessity for good communication, is an aid to efficiency, and will affect students' attitudes.

Teaching handwriting by strokes is the simplest and most effective way to teach the principles of handwriting. With this approach, the child learns and practices the few basic strokes from which.most letters are composed. As he learns these strokes, he has a tool for conquering difficulties in letter formation. In practicing the strokes, he will also become better aquainted with the feel of the basic movements of handwriting, which will result in his handwriting becoming more accurate and automatic.

In this course, considerable attention is given to the teaching of quality. Quality includes proper slant, alignment, size, proportion, line quality, and spacing.

Each grade level has a very thorough teacher's guide. Emphasis is placed on correct posture, paper placement, pencil holding, and so on.

Grades 1, 2, and 3 teacher's guides are hardbound books. Grade 4 is softcover.


Penmanship 1

Grade 1 penmanship is composed of three 9" high x 11 3/4" wide workbooks with tear-out sheets. Altogether there are 150 lessons. The formation of large and small manuscript letters and numerals is taught in Grade 1.

The first workbook teaches the basic strokes used in the formation of manuscript letters and the formation of small letters and numerals. Letters and numerals formed by a similar stroke pattern are grouped together to facilitate easy learning. For example, by using lines that go across and lines that go down, pupils form the letters l, i, and t, and the numerals 1 and 4. Pupils combine letters they have learned to form words.

In the second workbook the capital letters are taught. More practice is given printing numerals and words. The third workbook concentrates on printing sentences. Attention is given to the spacing between words and to the proper formation of each letter and numeral.

15111 Pupil's Workbook, Units 1,2   $4.90

15113 Pupil's Workbook, Units 3,4   $4.90

15115 Pupil's Workbook, Unit 5   $4.70

15191 Teacher's Guide   $14.15

+015 Grade 1 Penmanship Set   $28.65     above four items

15121.1   1" Ruled Tablet   $2.40

15123.1   3/4" Ruled Tablet   $2.40

Printing Practice workbooks are available with the Grade 1 Bible Nurture and Reader Series and may be preferred as an option to the penmanship series for Grade 1. These workbooks teach the formation of the letters in the same order that the letter sounds are introduced in the Bible Nurture and Reader Series.


Penmanship 2

This 9" x 11 3/4" workbook with tear-out sheets is composed of 60 lessons. It reviews the formation of each of the capital and small manuscript letters and the numerals; then it progresses to teaching slant print. The slant print strokes are taught first, followed by the slant print small and capital letters, and numerals. Pupils print many sentences using slant print letters. Slant print is taught as an introduction to cursive writing.

In the second half of Grade 2, pupils learn the cursive strokes. In the introductory lessons, some exercise is given to writing sentences and cursive letters. Proceeding to the teaching of cursive small and capital letters, letters are again grouped according to stroke formation. The strokes for each letter are illustrated and much practice is given.

Tablets of writing paper that match the lines in the penmanship book are available.

15211 Pupil's Workbook   $5.35

15291 Teacher's Guide   $9.60

+025 Grade 2 Penmanship Set   $14.95     above two items

15125.1 1/2" Ruled Tablet   $2.40

Penmanship 3

This course is composed of 60 lessons in one 9" x 11 3/4" workbook with tear-out sheets, reviews the formation of the slant print and cursive strokes and provides much exercise in writing sentences using the cursive letters. The sentences in Grade 3 give information about various birds. Formation of the numerals is also reviewed.

Throughout the lessons, much emphasis is placed on proper letter formation, correct slant, consistency of strokes, letter spacing, word spacing, size of writing, proportion, alignment, and neatness.

Tablets of writing paper that match the lines in the penmanship book are available.

15311 Pupil's Workbook   $5.35

15391 Teacher's Guide   $9.45

+035 Grade 3 Penmanship Set   $14.80     above two items

15126.1 1/2" 5-line Ruled Tablet   $2.40


Penmanship 4

Fourth grade penmanship, composed of 30 lessons in one 8 1/4" x 10 1/2" perforated workbook, reviews the slant print strokes, the formation of slant print letters, and the numerals. In Lessons 5 and 6 the cursive strokes are reviewed. Lessons 7 and 8 review the various aspects of quality: slant, size, alignment, height, letter spacing, word spacing, proportion, and neatness. In the remaining lessons the cursive letters are reviewed.

Throughout the year, the pupils write many sentences about animals. The aspects of quality listed above are drilled continually. The main emphasis of Grade 4 is on perfecting the students' cursive handwriting.

Tablets of writing paper that match the lines in the penmanship book are available.

15411 Pupil's Workbook   $3.70

15491 Teacher's Guide   $5.15

+045 Grade 4 Penmanship Set   $8.85     above two items

15127.1 3/8" 5-line Ruled Tablet   $2.40

This site is owned, designed, and operated by Mark Roth of Hopewell Mennonite Church and Anabaptist Solutions (aka the Anabaptists Web Project).

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