Cursive Worksheets for Grade 2
Single letters and first joins. Second grade is where most cursive instruction begins in earnest: the lowercase alphabet as five stroke families, the first two-letter connections, and short words a second grader can already read.
16 printable cursive worksheets were written for grade 2, across four skills, 132 ruled lines of practice between them. Every sheet prints on US Letter or A4 with four-rule guided lines, and none of them needs an account.
Hang the cursive alphabet chart beside the desk while working through these sheets: every capital and lowercase letter on one page.
Skills at this grade
Lowercase Letters(5)
All lowercase letters →Cursive Loop Letters e, l, h, f, k, b — Grade 2
Grade 2 practice for the loop stroke family (e, l, h, f, k, b): trace and copy the set, then six words that use it. Free printable PDF on one page.
Cursive Mixed Letters r, s, j, p — Grade 2
Grade 2 practice for the mixed stroke family (r, s, j, p): trace and copy the set, then six words that use it. Free printable PDF on one page.
Cursive Oval Letters a, c, d, o, g, q — Grade 2
Grade 2 practice for the oval stroke family (a, c, d, o, g, q): trace and copy the set, then six words that use it. Free printable PDF on one page.
Cursive Slant Letters n, m, v, x, y, z — Grade 2
Grade 2 practice for the slant stroke family (n, m, v, x, y, z): trace and copy the set, then six words that use it. Free printable PDF on one page.
Cursive Undercurve Letters i, t, u, w — Grade 2
Grade 2 practice for the undercurve stroke family (i, t, u, w): trace and copy the set, then six words that use it. Free printable PDF on one page.
Letter Connections(6)
All letter connections →Cursive "an" Connection Worksheet — Grade 2
Grade 2 pair-tracing sheet for the cursive an connection: trace and copy the pair, then six an words. Free printable PDF on one page.
Cursive "ch" Connection Worksheet — Grade 2
Grade 2 pair-tracing sheet for the cursive ch connection: trace and copy the pair, then six ch words. Free printable PDF on one page.
Cursive "in" Connection Worksheet — Grade 2
Grade 2 pair-tracing sheet for the cursive in connection: trace and copy the pair, then six in words. Free printable PDF on one page.
Cursive "ll" Connection Worksheet — Grade 2
Grade 2 pair-tracing sheet for the cursive ll connection: trace and copy the pair, then six ll words. Free printable PDF on one page.
Cursive "sh" Connection Worksheet — Grade 2
Pair-tracing worksheet for Grade 2 students practicing the cursive sh connection through guided trace, copy, and freewrite exercises.
Cursive th Connection Worksheet — Grade 2 Pair Tracing
Six pair-tracing exercises for second graders practicing the cursive th connection, from guided letter models through word copying and free writing.
Word Practice(4)
All word practice →Cursive Animal Words Worksheet — Grade 2
Nine animal words for grade 2 in cursive: cat, dog, pig, cow, hen, fox, owl, bee and ant. Traced and copied. Free printable PDF. US Letter or A4.
Cursive Color Words Worksheet — Grade 2
Nine color words for grade 2 in cursive: red, blue, pink, gold, gray, tan, green, brown and black. Traced and copied. Free printable PDF.
Cursive Food Words Worksheet — Grade 2
Nine food words for grade 2 in cursive: egg, jam, ham, pie, rice, corn, bean, milk and soup. Copied from a model. Free printable PDF.
Grade 2 Cursive Sight Words Trace and Write Practice
Nine Grade 2 sight words — they, with, have, from, word, some, come, were, and what — arranged in trace-then-copy pairs for early cursive learners.
Themed Worksheets(1)
All themed worksheets →Nearby grades
Written for grade 1 and grade 3, not for grade 2, but close enough in the hand to be worth a look: a student who finds the sheets above too easy or too hard usually wants one of these next.
Cursive Capital A Worksheet — Trace and Practice
Cursive capital A for grade 1: a model letter, a tracing row, copy lines, and five capitalized words to trace and copy, Anna to Austin. Free printable PDF.
Cursive "br" Connection Worksheet — Grade 3
Grade 3 bridge-join sheet for the cursive br connection: trace and copy the pair, then six br words. Free printable PDF on one page.
Cursive Capital B Worksheet — Trace and Practice
Cursive capital B for grade 1: a model letter, a tracing row, copy lines, and five capitalized words to trace and copy, Ben to Bruno. Free printable PDF.
Cursive "oa" Connection Worksheet — Grade 3
Grade 3 bridge-join sheet for the cursive oa connection: trace and copy the pair, then six oa words. Free printable PDF on one page.
Cursive Capital C Worksheet — Trace and Practice
Cursive capital C for grade 1: a model letter, a tracing row, copy lines, and five capitalized words to trace and copy, Carla to Clara. Free printable PDF.
Cursive "ve" Connection Worksheet — Grade 3
Grade 3 bridge-join sheet for the cursive ve connection: trace and copy the pair, then six ve words. Free printable PDF on one page.
What is on this page
16 of the 16 sheets on this page were written for grade 2 specifically, and none are borrowed from the grades either side. The skills covered at grade 2, largest first, are Letter Connections (6), Lowercase Letters (5), Word Practice (4) and Themed Worksheets (1).
Across those sheets a grade 2 student works through 95 exercise blocks and 132 ruled lines: 34 tracing rows, 34 copying rows, 16 free-writing rows with nothing printed and 11 model letterforms to study. The proportion matters more than the total — a year with a lot of tracing and little free writing is a year still building the movement, and one with more free writing than tracing is a year using it.
The letterforms a grade 2 sheet covers
No single-letter sheets are filed at grade 2. By this stage the letterforms are assumed and the work is joins, words and longer passages.
Six letter connections are covered at grade 2: an, ch, in, ll, sh and th, which sit at positions 1 and 2 and 3 and 6 and 7 and 27 of the 30 joins this site teaches. A connection sheet is not a letter sheet with two letters on it — neither letter is new by then, and the exercise is the join itself, specifically not lifting the pencil across it.
What a grade 2 student actually copies
The grade 2 sheets put 117 distinct words and letter groups in front of a student, averaging 3.9 letters each. That average is the number to check before printing a set: a handwriting sheet that makes a child decode the word before writing it is testing two things and reporting one.
Five exercise types appear at grade 2 — pair tracing, letter repetition, mixed, word tracing and word copying, across fall, animals, colors, food and sight words themes. Within a sheet the order is always the same and the support comes away one step at a time: a model to look at, a traced line where the shape is already there, a copied line where it is not, and often a blank one at the end.
Before and after grade 2
Grade 2 is one of six grades this site publishes for, and cursive is unusual in how much a sheet moves between them: every sheet in the main list above was written for grade 2, and the nearby-grades block shows a few from the grades either side. If grade 2 lands badly, the grade 1 page and the grade 3 page are usually the adjustment rather than a different skill — the hand is the limit, not the reading. Doing the next sheet the same day is usually wrong; the hand needs the gap more than the head does.