The strokes inside every letter
Every printed letter is made of a few strokes: a line down, a line across, a slant, a curve. Children who can draw those strokes smoothly find letters much easier to learn. Tracing lines lets them practise the strokes on their own, before letters ask them to remember shapes as well.
A good order
- Straight lines, across and then up and down.
- Slanted lines and zigzags, for letters like v, w and z.
- Waves and bumps, the curves in letters like n, m and s.
- Loops, a first taste of joined handwriting.
- Shapes, closing a line back where it started.
Next steps
When lines feel easy, move on to alphabet tracing with start dots and stroke arrows, and toname tracing for each child’s own name. Easy mazes practise the same pencil control.
In the Australian Curriculum
- Before schoolEarly Years Learning Framework Outcome 3, wellbeing, includes children’s growing physical skills, such as hand control.
- Before schoolEarly Years Learning Framework Outcome 5 includes early mark-making, as children begin to use symbols.
- FoundationForming letters using learnt formations (AC9EFLY08), which these strokes lead into.
The year before school has different names around Australia: kinder in Victoria, kindy in Queensland, preschool in NSW and South Australia, and Kindergarten in Western Australia. Early learning services follow the Early Years Learning Framework, which puts play first, so tracing pages work best as one short choice among drawing, playdough and threading.
In Foundation, a page of lines makes a quick warm-up before handwriting, especially in the first weeks of Term 1.
Summarised in our own words from the Australian Curriculum: English, Version 9.0 (ACARA) and the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia, V2.0.
