Handwriting and tracingPre-K and K
Uppercase letter tracing
Capital letters A to Z, one letter per line, on tall primary lines. The first letter on each line is dark and the copies after it are grey to trace. It is aimed at preschool and kindergarten children.
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On this page
Why capitals come first
Many early childhood programs teach capitals before lowercase letters. Capital letters are built from straight lines and big curves, they all stand the same height, and they sit between the top line and the baseline without any tails. A child who has just learned to hold a pencil can manage that. Lowercase letters add the problem of different heights, which can wait.
This page prints only capitals, so each line holds one letter and its copies. Under the title "Uppercase Letter Tracing" there is a Name line, a short instruction, and then the writing lines.
What prints
The sheet starts with A and goes through Z. The first letter on each line is printed in dark ink, and the letters after it are light grey. The writing line has a thin top line, a dashed middle line and a darker baseline. For capitals the dashed line does not matter much, because every capital reaches the top, but it is the same ruling used for lowercase and sentence work, so children get used to it.
Because the page opens at the large size, only about seven lines fit on a sheet, and the alphabet takes four pages. The letters are grey Helvetica print, which is a clean, plain style. It is not the ball-and-stick or slanted style some schools use.
The settings
- Practice. Set to "Alphabet letters".
- Letters. Set to "Uppercase only". Choose "Upper and lower case (Aa)" if you want pairs on each line, or "Lowercase only" for small letters.
- Line size. It opens on Large (pre-K and K). The Medium and Small sizes give shorter lines and more of them per page.
Tips for the first weeks
- Print one page at a time. Seven letters is already a lot for a four-year-old.
- Say where each stroke begins before the child starts: "Start at the top, pull down." Most capitals begin at the top, and a few, such as C, G, O and S, start near the top right and curve around.
- Use a fat pencil or a short crayon. A small piece is easier to hold with a tripod grip than a whole pencil.
- Let the child trace the dark model with a finger first. The motion matters more than the neat result.
Worked example: the letters in a first name
A teacher has a pre-K group with names such as Ben, Sofia and Dev. For each child she prints the pages and cuts to the lines for the first letter of their name, then the others.
Ben starts with B. On that line he finds a dark B followed by grey copies. He traces down the straight side first, then the two humps, and writes one more on his own at the end of the line. The next day he does E and N, so he can write the capital letters of his own name. When that goes well, he can try the name tracing worksheet, or add lowercase with letter tracing worksheets.