Austin Palmer developed his method of penmanship in the 1870s, making it one of the oldest methods of teaching cursive writing. The method focuses on using the arm and shoulder muscles, not just the hand and wrist, when writing. Educators liked the discipline needed to learn the method and felt it would improve pupil behavior. The method fell out of fashion when educators started teaching young children block letters before moving on to the cursive style.
The Zaner-Bloser method originated around the same time as Palmer's method. The method is a collaboration between Charles Zaner and Elmer Bloser. Together, the two men created materials to teach good penmanship in schools. In 1904 they published the tutorial book "Zaner Method of Arm Movement." The method first teaches children to form simple, straight up and down letters using "sticks and circles" shapes. Cursive shapes are formed later, once children have mastered this technique. The Zaner-Bloser method is still one of the most widely-used methods of teaching handwriting in U.S. schools.
In the 1970s, Donald Neal Thurber introduced his method of teaching cursive writing. Compared with the Zaner-Bloser method with its upright strokes, the D'Nealian method focuses on using slanted letters when teaching children how to print letters before joining them up. He believed that this helped to make the transition to cursive writing easier for most children. The method also teaches children to keep the pen on the paper when writing, rather than lifting it between strokes.
In 2000, Linda Corson, a teacher with 36 years of experience in teaching handwriting to elementary children, published her method of teaching cursive. The method focuses on letter formation rather than words and teaches strokes in order of difficulty. Pupils are taught the letters with the same strokes as a group in one lesson, before moving on to the next group of letters and strokes. Corson claims this makes it easier to connect strokes and letters to form words.