How it works
- Pick your letters: the whole alphabet, the vowels, or just this week’s letter.
- Choose capitals, lowercase or both, and a handwriting style.
- Set the size and rows. The sheet on the right updates as you go.
- Download and print. All the letters you picked come out in one PDF.
What’s on each sheet
Every row starts with a model box: the letter in solid ink, a colour picture and its word, like an apple for A and a kite for K. (X shows a fox, as many phonics programmes do, because so few words start with x.) Beside it are three-line handwriting guides with the letter in grey, dotted or hollow outline to trace, and empty space at the end of the row to write it alone. With start dots switched on, the first letter to trace in each row shows a green dot where the pencil starts and a red arrow for the first move.
Teaching letter formation
Start at the top
Almost every print letter starts at the top line or the dashed midline and moves down. Children who learn this early write faster and more neatly later, and it stops habits like drawing an o clockwise from the bottom.
Group letters by how they start
Many teachers introduce letters in families rather than in A to Z order: the “magic c” letters (c, a, d, g, o, q) all start with the same curve, and the down-stroke letters (l, i, t) are the easiest of all. Pick a family with the letter tiles.
Say it while they write
Talk through the strokes out loud (“start at the top, pull down, lift, cross”) and have children say the letter’s sound and the example word.
Irish curriculum links
- WritingThe Handwriting and presentation outcome begins with mark-making and forming letters, then builds towards legible, fluent writing in a chosen script.
- ReadingStage 1 work on phonics and word recognition links each letter shape with a sound, which is why every row pairs a letter with a picture word.
- GaeilgeEnglish and Irish share one Primary Language Curriculum, so letter knowledge built in English is meant to carry over to Irish.
Junior Infants is where letter formation usually starts in earnest. The curriculum’s progression continuum describes children moving from letter-like marks to writing most capitals and lower-case letters as separate letters, so tracing a row of one letter fits that early step well.
Because the same curriculum covers English and Irish, children soon notice that some letters behave differently in Gaeilge. A quick chat about how a letter sounds in each language is a natural follow-on from a tracing sheet.
Summarised in our own words from the Primary Language Curriculum (2019, NCCA).
