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.
About this worksheet
This grade 2 sheet covers the first lowercase stroke family, i, t, u and w, in 6 blocks and 8 guided lines. The 4 letters are shown together as a model, traced twice each, and copied as a row; then 6 words (twin, wait, unit, with, suit and quit) are traced and copied, and every one of them contains at least two of the undercurve letters. Between them the undercurve family rows use 9 of the 26 lowercase letters, 2 of them tall (h, t) and 1 that drops below the baseline (q).
Cursive Undercurve Letters i, t, u, w — Grade 2
These 4 letters start with the same stroke. Trace them, copy them, then trace and copy the words below.
Study the undercurve family: i, t, u and w all start the same way.
Trace each undercurve letter twice.
Copy the row i t u w on the blank lines.
Trace these words; each uses two or more undercurve letters.
Copy these undercurve family words on the blank lines.
Write i t u w from memory, then one word that uses two of them.
How to form these letters
- i: One undercurve to the midline, a short retrace down to the baseline, an exit stroke, and the dot goes on last.
- t: Undercurve to the topline, retrace straight down to the baseline, exit forward, and add the crossbar last.
- u and w start with the same undercurve stroke as i and t; once those two are steady, the rest of the family usually comes in a fraction of the time.
See every letter at once on the cursive alphabet chart, uppercase and lowercase, in the same cursive face.
What the sheet asks the hand to do
There are six blocks on Cursive Undercurve Letters i, t, u, w, eight guided lines between them. 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 Undercurve Letters i, t, u, w are twin, wait, unit, with, suit and quit: six distinct words, averaging 4.0 letters, the longest "twin" at 4 against a grade 2 limit of 8. 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 the undercurve family: i, t, u and w all start the same way.”, the last “Write i t u w from memory, then one word that uses two of them.”. That is what lets the sheet be handed to a student who is working alone.
The text on the page
The text on Cursive Undercurve Letters i, t, u, w runs to 6 words, averaging 4.0 letters each, with "twin" the longest of them. That is the number that decides whether a sheet is a warm-up or a session: at this stage a child's hand tires before their attention does, and a page of long words tires it faster than a page of many short ones.
Between them the rows on Cursive Undercurve Letters i, t, u, w use nine of the twenty-six lowercase letters — a, h, i, n, q, s, t, u and w. Two of them are tall letters (h, t), which is what makes the ruled height on this sheet matter, and one drops below the baseline (q), so the descender space is in use too.
Where this one sits
Cursive Undercurve Letters i, t, u, w is one of 31 Lowercase Letters sheets here and one of sixteen written for grade 2. It is letter repetition work, and it suits grade 2 and grade 3.
The closest things to Cursive Undercurve Letters i, t, u, w are Cursive Letter e Worksheet — Trace and Practice (grade 1) and Cursive Letter f Worksheet — Trace and Practice (grade 1). 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
- The first stroke family is i, t, u and w. Have the student say the shared opening movement out loud on the first row; the point of a family sheet is that one movement is reused 4 times.
- The words twin, wait, unit, with, suit and quit were chosen because each contains at least two of the family letters, so a word that goes wrong usually goes wrong on the same stroke twice. Fix the stroke, not the word.
- t must reach the topline, and none drops below the baseline; check heights on the copy row before moving to the words.
Practice this next
More from lowercase letters and grade 2.
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
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Cursive Oval Letters a, c, d, o, g, q — Grade 2
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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 Letter p Worksheet — Trace and Practice
Six focused exercises guide Grade 1 students through tracing and copying cursive lowercase p, emphasizing the descender loop and connecting exit stroke.
Cursive Letter j Worksheet — Trace and Practice
Grade 1 cursive worksheet focused on lowercase j. Students trace and copy the letter, then practice with real words such as jar, jet, and jog.