Printable Second Grade Writing Paper

Print or cursive

Second grade is the year handwriting splits in two. Zaner-Bloser has two second grade books, 2M for manuscript and 2C for cursive, and its shop lists its ½” paper both ways: the sideways ream for grades 2 and 2M, the upright one for grades 2 and 2C. The Texas standards ask second graders to form “all cursive letters using appropriate strokes when connecting letters”.

Whichever your child writes, the size is the same. Half an inch is the one ruling both big programs use in second grade: Zaner-Bloser’s Grade 2 paper and Pacon’s “D’Nealian Grades 2&3 / Zaner-Bloser Grade 2” paper both have it, with the midline halfway and 1/4 in between rows. This page opens upright, the cursive book’s layout, with a red baseline; the words Name and Date sit over the first row.

A paragraph per page

At half an inch, small letters are 1/4 in tall, about 6 mm, and a row holds a full sentence. A US Letter page has 13 rows: enough for a paragraph, a short story or a week’s spelling words used in sentences. For a longer piece, set Pages to 3 or 4 to get them in one PDF.

For cursive, begin every row with a letter you have written as the model and have the child join three or four copies of it: the joins between letters are what the practice is for.

Room for tails

The 1/4 in gap between rows is where the tails of g, j, p, q and y go, and it is tight for children who write big. If tails run into the next row, choose A full row under Space between rows and tick Dotted descender line, which marks where each tail should stop. The page then fits 9 rows on US Letter.

Before and after second grade

D’Nealian classes use this same size through third grade. Zaner-Bloser moves on to 3/8 in rows: see the third grade writing paper. For a child who still writes big, the first grade writing paper has 5/8 in rows, and the lined paper generator has the rest.

Writing rows per page at 1/2 in (12.7 mm) letter height

Counted by the generator with this page’s settings: at least 1 inch of unruled space at the top, with the Name and Date labels just above the first row, 1/4 in (6.3 mm) between rows and a ½-inch bottom margin. Rows that don’t fit whole are left off, and the summary above the preview updates as you change the settings.