New Zealand Style Handwriting Worksheets

How to make it

1. Write your textType words, names or a sentence, each on its own line. The New Zealand print style is selected; switch to the joined style in the menu.
2. Decide how much helpChoose letter size, traced copies and empty rows, a dark first copy, and fading so later copies ask for more.
3. Print the sheetPrint on A4 at 100 percent, or save a PDF. Copy link brings back the same page later, words and settings included.

How New Zealand schools usually approach handwriting

Handwriting in New Zealand primary schools tends to move in two stages. New entrants and Year 1 children learn a basic, unjoined print with a slight slope, simple capitals and plain ascenders and descenders, with the focus on correct starting points, size and sitting letters on the line. Over the following years, typically from around Year 3 or 4, children develop a faster, sloped hand in which many letters join.

Schools have freedom in how they teach it, and national guidance on handwriting has been revised over the years, so classrooms differ. The designers of the Playwrite New Zealand fonts drew on New Zealand teaching models when they made them; that makes the fonts a reasonable match for the style, but it does not make these sheets a Ministry resource, and your school's chart remains the reference.

Two fonts for two stages

This page opens with New Zealand: print, which uses Playwrite NZ Basic. Its letters stay separate, which is what beginners need: type a word and the letters sit side by side without joins. It is the right choice for name practice, letter groups and first sentences.

When children are ready for joining, change the Handwriting style menu to New Zealand: joined, which uses Playwrite NZ. Its designers describe it as a fast, slanted, semi-connected hand; many letter pairs link automatically as you type. Printing the same sentence in both styles, one sheet after the other, is a simple way to show a class what changes when they start to join, and what stays the same.

Macrons and te reo Māori words

Many New Zealand classrooms practice te reo Māori words alongside English, so the fonts on this site include the vowels with macrons: ā, ē, ī, ō and ū, in lowercase and capitals. Type them as you would anywhere else and they trace in the same school style as the rest of the line, with the macron sitting above the vowel.

That matters because a macron changes a word: leaving it off is a spelling mistake, not a shortcut. Words such as whānau, kōrero and tamariki can go straight into a practice line next to English sentences. The print styles draw macrons too, as a short stroke above the letter, so a name like Mārama works on a ball-and-stick sheet as well.

Names with other accents work too. Letters such as é in Zoé or ï in Anaïs are included in the fonts, and the print styles draw them as the letter with its mark, so a class list with names like these prints without any fallback.

Short daily practice for new entrants

Children in New Zealand often start school on or soon after their fifth birthday, so a new entrant class grows through the year and children arrive at different points. That makes one big printed handwriting book awkward. Making sheets on demand suits it better: a child who started last week can have a name sheet and a first letter group, while classmates who have been at school for two terms work on short sentences.

Keep sessions brief and frequent. A line of three or four letters, a dark model, two traced copies and one empty row is plenty at first. Say the movement aloud as children trace, and praise the start point before the neatness. When a group of letters holds steady without tracing, add the next group and build simple words from both, such as at, it, sat and tip.

Because every sheet is generated from what you type, you can follow your own order of introducing letters rather than the order a published book chose.

Lines and sizes for each year

The guide lines are set from the font, not from a fixed rule. Tall letters touch the top line, the dashed midline sits at the font's x-height, and the faint bottom line marks descender depth. In both New Zealand fonts the lowercase body is a little more than half the full letter height, so the midline sits slightly above center, and descenders are relatively short.

As a rough guide, new entrants often start at 25 mm or larger, Year 2 children at 19 or 16 mm, and Years 3 and 4 at 13 mm as joining begins. By Year 5 and 6, 10 mm is close to an everyday writing size. New Zealand browsers show the Letter size menu in these millimeter sizes. Watch how a child copes and change the size freely; the sheet updates instantly.

No stroke arrows on the font sheets

The New Zealand style rows are traced as a dashed outline of each letter. They do not carry start dots, arrows or stroke numbers, because a font describes outlines only. For starting points and direction, demonstrate the letter first and talk through the movement.

If arrows are what you need, our print styles have them: green start dots, pink arrows and numbered strokes, on every letter if you choose. Those letters are American-style upright print rather than the New Zealand slope, so they are best for teaching movement, while the New Zealand fonts show the shapes children will actually write. The letter tracing generator uses that print for the whole alphabet.

A Year 3 class moving into joined writing

Imagine a Year 3 teacher whose class can form every letter well and is about to start joining. Week one, print five short words in the New Zealand print style, then the same five words in the joined style on a second sheet, both at 16 mm with two traced rows. Week two, joined style only, with a short sentence from the class reading book. Week three, drop to one traced row and add empty rows, and move to 13 mm.

For whole sentences and longer copywork, the sentence tracing worksheets page has the same New Zealand styles in its menu, and for each child's name there is name tracing with a page per child. Lists you save stay in this browser only. For how New Zealand practice compares with Australia, the UK and the US, read handwriting styles by country.