Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting

Getty-Dubay is the seven-level italic handwriting method developed at Portland State University in 1979 by Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay, built around a single letterform that begins as print and transitions to connected cursive without the child having to unlearn and relearn shapes.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Italic handwriting with print-to-cursive continuity; seven-level workbook progression
Worldview	Secular
Grades	PreK-8 (Books A-G); adult workbook available
Formats	Print workbooks; digital app; calligraphy supplies
Cost tier	Budget
Parent intensity	3
ESA-common	Varies
Accredited	No
Established	1979; originally published by Portland State University Continuing Education Press
Website	handwritingsuccess.com (formerly gettydubay.com)

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Deliberate letterform instruction grounded in calligraphic tradition; consistent across levels
Ease of teaching	4	Workbook is self-directed; parent demonstrates, then observes
Content quality	5	The italic hand itself is the point, and it's elegant
Flexibility	4	Levels can be paced by ability rather than grade
Value for money	5	Workbooks under $15 each; no consumables beyond
Worldview scope	5	Secular; content-neutral letterform practice
Visual/design	4	Clean, restrained, typographic, appropriate to the subject
Support resources	3	Videos and apps exist; teacher scripting is light

Who the publisher is

Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting was developed in 1979 by Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay, then affiliated with Portland State University's Continuing Education Press. Getty and Dubay were practicing calligraphers and handwriting instructors; the method grew from a conviction that the American practice of teaching ball-and-stick printing first and looped cursive second was producing adults who wrote badly in both hands because the two systems required them to relearn letterforms midway through elementary school. Their alternative, a single italic letterform that begins without connections and then gains them, was and remains a minority position in American handwriting instruction, but a durable one.

The Continuing Education Press handled distribution for the program for decades before the publisher transitioned operations; the program currently sells through Handwriting Success, which distributes the full seven-level workbook series, a digital app, calligraphy supplies, and a companion adult workbook titled Write Now. The Portland State affiliation is a piece of the program's pedigree rather than its current distribution channel, a family ordering in 2026 buys through the Handwriting Success storefront, not from the university.

Editorially, Getty-Dubay is secular, academic, and content-neutral. The workbook practice sentences are drawn from public-domain poetry, nature observation, and general cultural material. There is no religious framing and no political framing. The method is used across classical Christian, Catholic, secular, Montessori, and Charlotte Mason households equally, a level of worldview reach most handwriting programs share by default but that Getty-Dubay in particular exemplifies.

The core pedagogy

Getty-Dubay teaches a single italic letterform across all seven workbooks, beginning (in Book A, for PreK-K) with the simple printed forms of each letter, an italic a with its slight forward slant, not the round ball-and-stick a of traditional American printing, and gradually, across Books B through F, adding the joins that connect one letter to the next. By Book F (late elementary), a student is writing a fluent connected italic that reads as cursive without the exaggerated loops of Palmer or Zaner-Bloser. Book G extends into advanced practice and calligraphy. The adult workbook Write Now covers the full method in a single volume for older beginners.

Three signature mechanics distinguish the program. First, the single-letterform continuity: a child does not learn a manuscript alphabet and then abandon it for a cursive alphabet. The letterform stays the same; the connections evolve. This is the program's central pedagogical claim and its durable advantage, research on handwriting transfer consistently suggests students retain italic forms better than students who must relearn letter shapes at the cursive transition. Second, the workbook plus modeling: each workbook page shows a model letter or word at the top, traces of the same in gray, and blank practice lines below. A parent demonstrates once, the student practices, and the parent occasionally re-demonstrates stroke order. Third, the pen grip and paper-position coaching: the opening pages of every workbook address the physical foundations, how to hold the pen, how to tilt the paper, that American handwriting programs often omit.

What Getty-Dubay does not do is embed itself in a broader language-arts scope and sequence. Unlike Logic of English or Spell to Write and Read, handwriting here is its own discipline, taught for its own sake. A family wanting handwriting to integrate with spelling, reading, and composition will need to supply that integration from other programs.

A day in the life

A first-grader working Book B typically spends fifteen to twenty minutes per day on handwriting. The parent opens the workbook to the next page, demonstrates the new letter or join on a separate piece of practice paper, watches the child form the letter two or three times, and then steps back. The child works through the tracing exercises, the blank-line practice, and the short sentence at the bottom of the page. A parent returns to check pencil grip, letter slant, and consistency at the end of the session. Total session: fifteen minutes; parent-intensive for three to five minutes of that.

A fifth-grader in Book E is essentially self-directed. The parent's role is a two-minute spot-check at the start of a session and a five-minute review at the end. Handwriting sits as a tidy twenty-minute block inside the morning rotation, between math and language arts or as a calming transition between more demanding subjects. Families using italic as their primary script often integrate practice by asking the student to recopy a poem or a short passage in italic a few times a week rather than running a separate workbook exercise.

What they do exceptionally well

Letterform quality. The italic hand itself is genuinely beautiful, adult italic is one of the most legible scripts in common use, and children who learn it grow into adults who write a readable, professional hand. A child's first-grade page in Book B, however shaky, is already the basis of handwriting a parent will be glad to see in birthday cards thirty years later. This is not a small editorial consideration; handwriting is, among other things, a durable artifact of a person's education, and few programs produce as consistently attractive a finished script as Getty-Dubay.

Print-to-cursive continuity. The single-letterform approach is the program's most durable claim and its most defensible pedagogical choice. Children taught italic from the start do not suffer the sixth-grade cursive-manuscript split that leaves so many American adults writing in printed block letters because their elementary cursive never took. This is a quiet but meaningful advantage.

Price and longevity. Workbooks list at roughly $12-$16 each at Handwriting Success, and a family of two children progressing through the full series spends roughly $80-$120 over the full elementary years. There are no required consumables beyond a pencil. The program is remarkably inexpensive compared to subscription-based or premium curricula.

Continuity across a long catalog. Because the letterform stays the same from Book A through Book G, a child who picks up the program late, at fifth grade, say, after switching from a different handwriting method, can enter Book D or E without having to learn a separate introductory alphabet first. Families who realize mid-elementary that their child's handwriting needs a deliberate reset can adopt Getty-Dubay at the appropriate level without starting over at the beginning.

What they do poorly

Teacher-facing scripting is light. A parent who wants turn-by-turn instructions on how to demonstrate a new letter, what to watch for, and how to correct a common error will find Getty-Dubay's parent-facing guidance thin. The workbooks assume the parent will learn italic alongside the child or will figure out stroke order from the model. Some parents do this comfortably; others find the lack of scripting frustrating.

Minority status in American education. Because italic is not the dominant American handwriting method, a child educated in Getty-Dubay will occasionally encounter friction with outside institutions, a co-op teacher used to ball-and-stick may mark letter formation as incorrect; a standardized-test proctor may not know what italic connections are; relatives may puzzle briefly over the child's Christmas cards. None of this is disabling. It is, occasionally, an explanation the family has to provide.

No full integration with language arts. Handwriting is taught in isolation. Families who want their handwriting program to reinforce spelling patterns, copywork selections, or composition mechanics will need to pair Getty-Dubay with a separate spelling or copywork program. Publishers like Logic of English weave handwriting into a broader system; Getty-Dubay does not.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Getty-Dubay if: you want a durable, beautiful handwriting script; you find the print-to-cursive transition in traditional American handwriting wasteful or frustrating; you value secular, content-neutral materials; you prefer budget-priced workbooks over subscription programs; your child is capable of self-directed workbook practice after brief parent modeling; you have an adult or older student starting from scratch and want Write Now as a unified volume.

• Skip Getty-Dubay if: you want handwriting integrated into a broader language-arts curriculum rather than taught as its own subject; you prefer the familiarity of traditional American looped cursive for social or institutional reasons; your child needs heavy teacher scripting and step-by-step parent guidance; you want a digital-first handwriting program with tablet interactivity rather than pencil-on-paper practice; your state ESA marketplace requires vendor-level registration the publisher does not offer.

Cost honest assessment

Individual Getty-Dubay workbooks list at approximately $12-$16 each at Handwriting Success as of April 2026, with the adult Write Now volume at roughly $19-$22. A family progressing a single child through Books A-F spends approximately $70-$90 over six years of elementary education. Italic-nib pens and paper add minor cost, $5-$20 total, for families who want to go beyond pencil practice.

Compared at the same subject tier: Zaner-Bloser workbooks run roughly $10-$18 each and are the mainstream American alternative; Handwriting Without Tears runs roughly $10-$16 per workbook with a similar grade-band structure; A Reason for Handwriting runs roughly $12-$18 per workbook with a Christian scripture-copywork integration. Getty-Dubay sits comfortably within the same budget tier as the mainstream American options; its price does not distinguish it.

A realistic family budget: $12-$18 per child per year for the current workbook, with occasional add-ons for pens or the digital app.

ESA eligibility notes

Getty-Dubay workbooks are typically ESA-eligible where individual curriculum purchases are reimbursable, sold through ESA-approved retailers such as Rainbow Resource Center rather than Handwriting Success directly. Families should confirm vendor status in their state marketplace before ordering. Because the content is secular, the program does not trigger religious-materials restrictions.

Alternatives

• Handwriting Without Tears, a family would choose HWT over Getty-Dubay because the program is the dominant occupational-therapy-aligned handwriting option and offers extensive support for children with fine-motor or developmental needs.
• Zaner-Bloser, a family would choose Zaner-Bloser over Getty-Dubay to match the dominant American school standard, easing transitions into and out of brick-and-mortar schools.
• A Reason for Handwriting, a family would choose A Reason for Handwriting over Getty-Dubay for a Christian family that wants scripture-based copywork integrated into daily handwriting practice.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed the current publisher catalog at handwritingsuccess.com, the method's documented origin at Portland State University's Continuing Education Press, and sample pages from Books A, C, and F. We cross-referenced pricing against Rainbow Resource Center and published homeschool reviews, and we compared the italic letterform to the traditional Zaner-Bloser and D'Nealian models for structural difference. Prices and program details verified April 2026.