Shape tracing and pre-writing sheets

Start with the lines, not the shapes

Every letter your child will ever write is built from a small set of movements. Down strokes, across strokes, curves, loops. A child who can draw a steady line and a round circle already has most of the raw material for lower case letters.

That’s what the pre-writing pack is quietly doing, and it’s the one I nearly didn’t bother making. It looks like the least interesting of the three and it’s doing the most work, which is often how these things go.

The rough order children manage them is straight lines, then waves, then zigzags, then loops and spirals. The pack is arranged that way on purpose, so working through it in order gives you a gentle ramp rather than a wall.

Keep the pencil out of it at first

For a two-year-old, tracing a line with a finger is a genuine achievement. Then a thick crayon, then a chunky pencil, then eventually something with a point on it.

Going straight to a sharp pencil usually produces a white-knuckle grip that’s a nuisance to unlearn later, and there’s no prize for getting there first.

The cut out pack is worth the faff

You do the cutting, they do the matching. Ten shapes, ten outlines, and a surprising amount of mileage in it.

It also travels well. Put the pieces in a sandwich bag and it becomes a restaurant activity, a waiting room activity, or a grandparent’s house activity, right up until the day the hexagon disappears forever.

Don’t run a lesson

Five minutes, sitting alongside them rather than looming over them, stopping while it’s still fun. Nothing here needs finishing, nothing is being marked, and there’s no standard a three-year-old is falling behind.

If tracing sheets are a fight in your house, do the same job another way. Threading pasta, peeling stickers, playing with dough, cutting up the junk mail that arrives anyway. All of it builds the same hand control, most children will stick with it longer, and none of it costs you any ink.

When a pencil does come into it, the handwriting guides on the lined and grid paper page are the next step up, and starting reception covers what school will actually expect.

A five minute session, step by step

Pick one sheet and look at it together before you start. Point to the green dot and say where to begin. Trace the first shape or line yourself, slowly, saying its name out loud if it has one. Then hand over the pencil and let your child do the next one. When the row is done, or when your child looks away, stop.

Common problems, and what to do

Some children start in the middle of the shape, or go round the wrong way. Point to the dot and say “start here”, rather than correcting the direction. Some children colour over the shape instead of tracing it, which is still practice with the pencil. Others trace one shape brilliantly and then lose interest. That’s the signal to stop, not a sign that the sheet has failed.

Choosing where the sheet goes

Keep the sheets in a folder on a low shelf, where a child can take one out without asking. Clear the table before you start, because a crowded table invites other things to be picked up. A clipboard or a hard book underneath the sheet makes tracing easier on the wrist, and it’s one less thing to worry about.