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.
Irish curriculum links
- WritingStage 1 Handwriting and presentation starts with exploring mark-making tools and surfaces, before letter formation.
- Shape & SpaceFollowing a path from one picture to another links to Stage 1 spatial awareness: up, down, across and round.
- AistearAistear (2024) guides preschool settings, where children first meet mark-making through play. These sheets carry it on into school.
Pre-writing pattern work is a long-standing part of Junior Infants in Ireland, usually done big first: in sand, with paint, or with a finger in the air, before pencil and paper.
The page sizes are labelled by age. In Irish terms, the Big size suits preschool and the start of Junior Infants, and the Small size suits the rest of Junior Infants and Senior Infants.
Summarised in our own words from the Primary Language Curriculum (2019), the Primary Mathematics Curriculum (2023) and Aistear (2024).
