Free · Ready to print · Letter & A4
Pre-writing strokes
The lines a hand learns before it can make a letter or a number, in the order children actually learn them. Free printable pre-writing sheets, from a first controlled vertical to the diagonals that come last.
- Letter & A4, portrait or landscape
- Real stroke centrelines, not outlines
- Change the size and reprint
Trace the pre-writing strokes
NameStart on the dot and follow the arrow. Trace the faint ones, then write your own.
This is page one of 3 at the default size. Open it in the maker to print the rest, choose a range, or fit more on a page.
About this sheet
The order on this sheet is not a difficulty ranking somebody invented — it is the developmental sequence: vertical, horizontal, circle, cross, square, diagonal, X, triangle. Verticals come first because a downward stroke uses the whole arm and needs the least control. Diagonals come near the end because they cross the body's midline, which is a genuinely later skill, and the triangle is last because it is two diagonals and a base. A child who cannot yet draw a controlled vertical cannot draw a 1, and one who cannot close a curve cannot draw a 0, which is why this page comes before the number sheets rather than beside them.
Why it is drawn this way
The strokes after the geometric ones — zig-zags, waves, loops and arches — are doing a different job. A zig-zag teaches changing direction without stopping; loops are continuous rotation, which is the engine of cursive; arches are the shape inside m, n and h. None of them is a letter, and that is deliberate: a child practising the movement without a letter attached is not also being judged on whether the letter is right.