It has been a while since this was posted. I am just wandering around the forum and thought I'd leave a response if anyone else comes across this...just my take:
Once you have an understanding of the letters both large and small, your work is only partially done. Each letter can be augmented depending on how it connects to and from others before and after it. These permutations are something worth considering as you develop your hand on the smaller letters, because you will quickly identify combinations that are difficult and/or commonly used. This expands your toolbelt exponentially.
By digging into this type of work, you quickly realize that there are quite a few consistencies in the ways that letters are spaced. lateral spacing in ES can be thought of as inner-letter, inter-letter, and inter-word. If you are practicing and studying the functions of letter combinations and permutations you are learning words. The two are the same.
The idea that writing words teaches you HOW to write words is flawed, in my opinion. What teaches you
HOW to write words is an intimate understanding of inner and inter-letter spacings.
I call these spacings 'Intervals' and have a rich curriculum built around them in
Dreaming In Script. Check it out if you're interested in learning more.
www.dreaminginscript.com