Writing Our Catholic Faith Handwriting Series

Writing Our Catholic Faith for grades PK-8 combines effective handwriting instruction with grade-specific Catholic curriculum.

Students build handwriting skills in a developmentally appropriate sequence, from building prewriting skills to learning how to write manuscript and cursive letters. Each book contains Catholic words, sentences, and illustrations to help students learn about their faith as they practice their handwriting.

All of the books in the Writing Our Catholic Faith series have been granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

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Handwriting for Early Childhood

Handwriting is such an important skill for students to learn. Research shows that writing by hand reinforces literacy development and enhances learning across the curriculum. However, not all children are ready to start writing at the same age or in the same grade.

To accommodate the needs of both teachers and students, we offer three options for pre-k and kindergarten:

Writing Our Catholic Faith: Writing Readiness for pre-k focuses on building the skills necessary to write by hand. When students have mastered these skills, you’ll know they’re ready for formal handwriting instruction.

Writing Our Catholic Faith: Basic Strokes & Letters is our most basic introduction to letter formation. This transitional handwriting book can be used in either pre-k or kindergarten, depending on the needs of individual students.

Writing Our Catholic Faith: Beginning Manuscript is a more advanced introduction to letter formation. Typically used in kindergarten, this handwriting book provides comprehensive letter instruction while also offering words and sentences for students to trace as they are ready.

Mastering Manuscript Handwriting Skills

In order for handwriting to become an automatic process, it’s important to continue instruction and reinforce those skills from grade to grade. Students should continue to practice not only letter formation but also words and sentences. This is essential for learning how to properly space letters and words and for developing handwriting that is both fluent and legible.

Writing Our Catholic Faith: Grade 1 reinforces manuscript handwriting skills. Students review basic strokes and letter formation. Words and sentence models help students understand proper letter and word spacing.

Writing Our Catholic Faith: Grade 2M continues to build students’ manuscript handwriting skills. Letter, word, and sentence practice, as well as more extended writing opportunities, help students begin to improve their handwriting speed and fluency.

Learning Cursive Writing

Cursive writing is a rite of passage that all students look forward to. They can’t wait to be able to “write like grown-ups.”

With options to start cursive letter instruction in either grade 2 or grade 3, Writing Our Catholic Faith guides your students from learning the cursive alphabet to fluent cursive handwriting.

Writing Our Catholic Faith: Grade 2MC provides a review of the manuscript letters before introducing the cursive alphabet. Students learn the cursive basic strokes, lowercase letters, and uppercase letters.

Writing Our Catholic Faith: Grade 3 offers a complete introduction to cursive handwriting. Each letter page includes detailed stroke descriptions and explanations of different letter joinings.

Writing Our Catholic Faith: Grade 4 reinforces previous cursive instruction and helps students continue to build their cursive writing skills. Extended writing activities encourage handwriting automaticity while the abundant Catholic content reinforces students’ religion lessons.

Writing Our Catholic Faith: Grade 5 continues to provide cursive handwriting practice while helping students to transition to standard writing lines. The midline guide helps students maintain proper letter size while building speed and fluency.

Handwriting Beyond the Elementary Grades

As students move into middle school and, eventually, high school and college, handwriting remains a relevant skill. Every day, students are required to complete schoolwork by hand.

Whether it’s assignments, quizzes, tests, or projects, students write to show what they think and what they know. They also write to learn; studies show that taking notes by hand helps students retain and comprehend information far more effectively than typing.

Writing Our Catholic Faith Grade 6, Grade 7, and Grade 8 provide continued handwriting practice. The review section at the beginning of each book serves as a refresher for experienced cursive writers as well as an introduction for students who are new to cursive.

Additionally, the in-depth Catholic curriculum included in the handwriting lessons make these books fit easily into both language arts and religion classes.