Our processes are based on the fact that more and more children have difficulties with handwriting. Its aim is to propose a basis for thought on which a structured teaching of handwriting could lean. Our research focuses on Latin handwritten cursive small letters used in French schools. We made the assumption that this writing - a French school product - constitutes a system, the elements of which can be named and the functioning described. This hypothesis leads to the viewpoint that to take this system into account could be a help in the teaching of writing. Our choice is backed up by the results of neurosciences which show that to write with the hand would be a help in learning to read. From the analysis of comments on the legibility of a corpus of handwritings, we shall show how this system is built and what hierarchic and functional relations its elements continuously use with each other. We shall see that the heart of the system would be organized into two minimal units. Each of them set up as a basic form and two derivatives for the one, three for the other. The system constituted by these seven forms would allow all of the Latin cursive small letters used in France to be written. As an opening towards others projects, we submitted this system to the recognition of letters by children at nursery school. We noticed an improvement of the score between before and after a session of collective commented observation of the letters. This research about Latin handwritten cursive small letters brought us to make certain pedagogical proposals for the training of teachers.
