Best Books About Popular Principles of Writing and Handwriting Fonts for Children

Spencerian system of penmanship
P.R. Spencer
19th Century School Books

The Palmer method of business writing
by A.N. Palmer
19th Century School Books

Penmanship Explained,
Or, The principles of writing reduced to an exact science
by S.A. Potter
19th Century School Books

McGuffey’s Script Alphabet

The Young Gentleman and Lady’s Monitor, and English Teacher’s Assistant
by John Hamilton Moore
Gutenberg Text
Morals & Manners arranged for Copywork

Leaves of Life For Daily Inspiration
by Margaret Bird Steinmetz
Gutenberg Text
Appropriate for Copywork

Disputed Handwriting
An exhaustive, valuable, and comprehensive work upon one of the most important subjects of today. With illustrations and expositions for the detection and study of forgery by handwriting of all kinds
by Jerome B. Lavay
Gutenberg Text
For Fun

Forty Centuries of Ink;
Or, a chronological narrative concerning ink and its background
by David Nunes Carvalho
Gutenberg Text

The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens
by Henry Bore
Gutenberg Text

ART OF PEN MAKING

An illustrated article for young ladies from a 19th Century Children’s Magazine. It describes how to make the correct pen point for a Quill pen using a pen knife. This would be a good way to get a reluctant handwriter interested in the subject. My boys love anything they can do with their pocket knives, just don’t tell them it was originally written for girls.

Handwriting Fonts for Children

Primer PC
Primer Mac
Manuscript Printing & and a Dashed Version for tracing. The Dashed version is slightly different than the solid version.

Penmenship
Simple manuscript printing inside ruled lines

BJU Press
Pre-Cursive Fonts
Manuscript Print, plus Dashed Version for tracing & one with arrows for directions.

Jarman
Solid lines, pre-cursive

Jardotty
Dashed Lines for tracing
Created by Christopher Jarman.

Script S
Lauren Script
Except for the capital “A”, these two match up very nicely. One is for beginning work and the other for fancy work.

Script C
Dahling
Except for the lowercase “r” these two match nicely. One is for beginning work, and the other for fancy work.

Block Letters-Tryout
School Script-Dashed
Cursive Tryout
These 3 are all from different makers, but they are similar in shape and progress well together.

AllureScript PC
Allure Script Mac
Formal Cursive, Not too curly

Da Font
Several nice fonts to choose from

My boys are 9 & 12 and we use Script S most often. After working with it for a little while I realized that it is quite close to matching McGuffey’s Script Alphabet, linked at the top of the page. Other Fonts you may already have on your computer include Freehand 521, Jott43 and Lucinda Handwriting.