Primary School
Whilst I was at primary school I was lucky enough to be taught cursive (joined up) handwriting as part of the curriculum. I was one of the weird ones that actually enjoyed it (and spent many hours practising at home too!) I take pride in my handwriting and enjoy finishing a page and seeing everything looking neat and legible!
Handwriting Practise
When I was working as a primary school teacher, I realised just how important it was to help children develop their gross and fine motor skills that would then allow them to form their letters correctly and with ease. I taught 6-7 years olds mostly with some children writing beautifully and others barely able to form letters. I made sure handwriting practise was fitted in!
Traveling in France
Since we left the UK on our travels, I have been lucky enough to spend 2 months in France so far. During a trip to one of their AMAZING hypermarkets (if you haven’t been to one you seriously NEED to!) I was looking in their stationary isle and saw a distinct lack of the ruled paper that I’m used to. Instead was book after book after book of this strange looking paper that they called Séyès ruling / French ruled paper. There were so many lines on each page I didn’t know what to do with them! We ended up buying five little exercise books for €1 as we both wanted something to keep rough notes in for our many boat projects and I’ve taught myself the rules to use them correctly!
The Séyès Grid
This is the paper with all the different types of lines.
Warm Up
Before you start writing, it’s a good idea to ‘warm up’ to get your hand ready for all the tiny letters! French teachers and calligraphers use exercises such as the one I’ve done. The idea is to do them as quickly as possible but to keep your loops within the gaps!
Lowercase Letters
I’ve split the lowercase letters up into groups according to the similarities that they share.
The first group are these where the entire letter only goes up to the first 2mm line. I have shown them in cursive style as when put together they join up nicely. You can see how the tail of each letter would join up to the next.
The second set have their bodies sat within the bottom two lines like above but they have a straight upward line which reaches the second line. (I was a bit enthusiastic with my ‘d’ sorry…it was trying to be like the next group but it isn’t allowed!) The main line and tail of the ‘t’ is formed first and then the horizontal line that crosses it second.
The third set have their bodies still sat within the bottom two lines (apart from the ‘l’) but they have an ‘upward loop’ which reaches up to the 3rd line.
The fourth group all have ‘downward loops or lines’. Again the main body of the letter sits ‘above the ground’ between the bottom and first line. The loops / straight lines go ‘below ground’ down to the second line.
The only letter left is the ‘f’ – this is because it’s the odd one out! It has both an upward and downward loop. The upward loop reaches up to the third line (like the third set of letters) and the downward loop goes ‘below ground’ down to the second line (like the fourth group).
Capital letters
Onto the CAPITAL letters! I’m sure the capital letters I was taught in school never looked this fancy!
These are the French way of writing capitals – no wonder their writing looks amazing!
All the capital letters reach up to the third line. Those with downward loops too (G, J and Y) also reach down to the second line ‘below ground’.
I’ve written each capital letter next to its lowercase letter here for comparison.
Numbers
Numbers written ‘French style’ are generally the same as what I was taught in the UK with the exception of numbers 1, 7 and 9.
1 is made up of ‘two’ lines instead of one going straight down from top to bottom. 7 has a horizontal line crossing over its vertical line halfway down the number (see picture!) 9 is basically an upside down 6 – despite this I still struggle to write it!
I’ve also included mathematical signs so you can se how they fit within the lines.
Time to Practise
Now you can see how to form all the lowercase and uppercase letters it’s time to practise writing them!
I’ve practised by writing each letter individually and then a row of them joined together. 
After I decided I was happy with each letter, I tried joining up multiple different letters together. If you feel you’d benefit from more practise then try putting two different letters together to start with then move onto 3+!
Once you have boosted your confidence, I highly recommend writing ‘pangram’s’. This is because a pangram contains all 26 letters of the alphabet in one sentence. My favourite example of a pangram is “A quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog”. I remember doing this back when I was in year 3 (aged 7!)
As you can see it takes a bit to get used to forming the letters but by the end the sizing and spacing was fairly consistent (and my writing looks neat and legible!)
Warning: You will need to concentrate hard to start with!
Where can I buy Séyès Ruling / French Ruled Paper?
Fantastic! By reaching the end of this post I’m guessing you are keen to improve your handwriting and give Séyès ruled paper a go?
We have published a range of books with Séyès ruling to give you a choice when you pick your book. Rather than have a plain, boring exercise book – why not choose a book with a bright, colourful and unique cover? You can find our range of books here. New covers are being added regularly so keep checking back. (If there is anything, in particular, you’d like on a cover then please let me know in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do!)
What Pens did I use?
For the handwriting practise where black (88/46) / dark green (88/36) / brown ink (88/45) was used: I wrote using my Stabilo point 88 fineliners as they has a very small nib on the end (0.4mm) which allows me to fit my letters in the small space available. It dries quickly which means no or very little smudging. It has a special ink that won’t dry out even when the cap is left off for up to 24 hours and a hexagonal shape which means I am able to grip it well when writing. If black isn’t your style then take your pick out of the wide range of colours they have available (30!). I also use these with my colouring books. If you’d like to try them then you can find them here: UK | USA
The light green ink used in ‘The Séyès Grid’ picture at the beginning was from my Stabilo point 68 felt-tip pen (68/33). These pens are great for anything arty and the lighter colours can be used for highlighting small pieces of information. The caps can be left off for up to 24 hours without the ink drying out and they are good to hold for writing or colouring. These pens are amazing for colouring books – you can use them for small or large areas and the colours are bright and vibrant. If you’d like to give them a try then you can find them here: UK | USA
Further Information
When I was finding out more information about handwriting in France I came across this video. It is a few years old but I found it really interesting and think what they do for their children is absolutely fantastic and schools these days should really take a leaf from their book!
I hope you enjoy watching it.
Where to next?
I hope you enjoyed reading this and it helps you with improving your handwriting. I’d love to hear your thoughts and answer any questions you may have so please leave a comment below.
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To be honest your article is informative. I search many site to know about hand writing but I didn’t get the information I needed. I saw your site and I read it. I got some new information from here. I think some of your tips can be applied to those too! Thank you so very much for such informative and useful content.
Thank you. I’m glad you’ve found it useful and hope it helps your handwriting.
There is some excellent advice here, many thanks for taking the time to write it. I’m currently using Seyes lined paper as part of my New Year resolution to improve my cursive writing, and your article helped greatly. Bravo!
Good article, but unfortunately your pangram is incorrect and doesn’t contain all 26 letters of the alphabet. It should be “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”
Thank you for your comment. I’ve just double checked that all 26 letters are there and they are. ‘The’ is already included in the sentence so changing ‘A’ for ‘the’ at the beginning of the sentence doesn’t add any additional letters to the sentence.