Beautiful handwriting is not just an art, it's a pleasure, especially when you do as much copywork as our family does. Now that we've started on the adventure of notebooking and lapbooking (look these up in an Internet search engine, if you're not familiar with the terms), nice handwriting is even more important in the finished look we're aiming for. Italic handwriting is certainly attractive, and lays a good foundation for later study in calligraphy.

Penny Gardner has put together a complete course in italic writing in this 46-page spiral-bound book. Both basic italic and cursive italic are covered. An introductory page briefly discusses Charlotte Mason's, and the author's, ideas about teaching handwriting. Next, you have suggestions for using Italics for teaching handwriting at any level. That's one thing I really like about this book: Instead of having a different handwriting book for each grade to keep track of, all I need is this one volume per child for all years of handwriting practice. I suppose I could get by with just one copy of the book for the whole family, if I were to write a model for each child to copy, using the lessons for my example, but the book is inexpensive enough to buy one for each child. There's something to be said for a sense of ownership - and for keeping everything together in one spiral-bound book.

Basic italic is presented in fourteen lessons - short lessons, which remind me of Charlotte Mason's advice that a few carefully rendered letters have much more learning value than an entire page of sloppy work. Related letters are presented, a few at a time, with brief instructions and a small area for copywork laid out within each lesson. (By "related letters" I mean, of course, letters with similar formation, such as i-j-l, v-w, k-x, and so forth.)

Once all the basic lessons have been completed, the author introduces the concept of copywork, along with suggestions for implementing this practice. There are examples of basic italic handwriting for copywork, to give you an idea of how to set up practice sheets. These examples can be used right out of the book (or in it, rather) for copywork before you have to come up with your own.

When the child is ready to move on to cursive italics, you'll begin with Lesson 15, proceeding through Lesson 24, learning how to join italic letters together in words, and which letters are never joined. Once again, letters and combinations are presented with enough space on the page for the student to work right in the book.

Following Lesson 24 are a number of examples of cursive italic handwriting, suitable for your student's copywork. There are quotations, famous poems, hymns, and an excerpt from a longer story, all beautifully rendered in cursive italics. Following these are several pages of printed quotes suitable for transcribing into either basic or cursive italics, and finally, a page of suggestions for making copywork more challenging for older students who are working at a fourth grade level or above.

I've found Italics by Penny Gardner to be simple yet thorough, and a valuable addition to our handwriting practice.