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.
About this worksheet
This grade 3 sheet isolates the oa join in 6 blocks and 8 guided lines: a model, a tracing row, a copy row, then 6 words (boat, coat, road, soap, goat and loaf) that each contain oa. Because o exits at the midline, oa is a bridge join, and the six words all practice that high entry into a. oa is number 21 of the 30 connections this site teaches.
Cursive "oa" Connection Worksheet — Grade 3
Trace each letter pair slowly and carefully. Then copy the words on the blank lines below without lifting your pencil inside a word.
Study how o and a join in one smooth stroke.
Trace each oa pair without lifting your pencil.
Copy the oa pair on the lines below.
Trace these words that contain oa.
Copy these oa words on the lines below.
Write your own oa words on the lines below.
How to form these letters
- For o, undercurve to the midline, close the oval, and exit from the top of the letter with a short bridge stroke.
- For a, start with an undercurve to the midline, swing back into a closed oval, retrace down and exit with a short undercurve.
- o exits from the top, at the midline, so the join to a is a short bridge stroke across the top rather than an undercurve from the baseline; a starts higher than usual.
What the sheet asks the hand to do
Cursive "oa" Connection Worksheet is six blocks and eight guided lines. One of a model to study, two of tracing, two of copying and one of free writing. The order is a model to look at, a traced row where the shape is already there, a copied row where it is not and a blank block with nothing printed at all, so the support comes away one step at a time rather than all at once.
The words on Cursive "oa" Connection Worksheet are boat, coat, road, soap, goat and loaf: six distinct words, averaging 4.0 letters, the longest "boat" at 4 against a grade 3 limit of 10. Word length is the number to check before printing: a handwriting sheet that makes a student decode a word first is testing two things and reporting one.
Each block carries its own instruction rather than one set of directions at the top — the first reads “Study how o and a join in one smooth stroke.”, the last “Write your own oa words on the lines below.”. That is what lets the sheet be handed to a student who is working alone.
The oa itself
oa is the 21st of the 30 connections this site teaches, and the join is the whole exercise — neither letter is new by the time a student meets it here. It starts on o, which exits from the top rather than the baseline, and connections after o, b, v, w (overcurve exit) are hardest. oa is on the site's list of the hardest joins for exactly that reason.
Where this one sits
Cursive "oa" Connection Worksheet is one of ten Letter Connections sheets here and one of fourteen written for grade 3. It is transition practice work, and it suits grade 3 and grade 4.
The closest things to Cursive "oa" Connection Worksheet are Cursive "ll" Connection Worksheet (grade 2) and Cursive "sh" Connection Worksheet (grade 2). Cursive is one of the few subjects where doing the next sheet the same day is usually wrong — the hand needs the gap more than the head does — so those are the ones for tomorrow rather than for the rest of this session.
Notes for the grown-up
- Watch that the student does not lift the pencil between o and a. A break in the line at oa means the connection was not made.
- The oa join is one of the bridge joins after o: the most common error is dropping to the baseline before a, which turns the bridge into an ordinary undercurve and leaves a gap at the top of o.
- Ready to move on when oa is evenly spaced and joined smoothly in all six words, boat, coat, road, soap, goat and loaf.
Practice this next
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