Traditional Ball-and-Stick Print & Cursive Worksheets

How to make it

1. Enter the practice textType letters, words or a sentence, one per line. Short words such as bed or dab are ideal for drilling a single stroke pattern.
2. Match the gradeChoose a letter size, how many rows to trace and how many to leave empty, and where arrows appear: first row, first letter, every letter or none.
3. Print itUse Print with the scale at 100 percent, or save a PDF. Copy link brings the same page back later; the footer's sheet number tells you which one it was.

A tutor, a fourth grader and the letters b and d

Picture a tutor working with a Grade 4 student who still writes b for d in about one word out of five. The student reads well and knows which letter is which when asked, yet the hand keeps choosing the wrong shape. Often the cause is formation: if both letters are drawn as a loose circle with a stick added afterward, nothing in the movement tells them apart.

Ball-and-stick print gives each letter a different starting move. On these sheets, b starts with the tall line pulled down from the top, then, without lifting, the hand climbs back up the line and bulges forward into the round part. The letter d starts the other way, with a c-shaped curve that begins near the top right and travels counterclockwise, then pushes up to the top line and pulls the tall line down, again in one movement. Print a row of bed, dab, bad and bid with arrows on every letter, and the student traces two clearly different movements dozens of times. Many tutors find that a few short sessions of this beat any number of reminders.

What ball-and-stick print is

Ball-and-stick, sometimes called manuscript or vertical print, builds every letter from straight lines, full circles and parts of circles. Letters stand upright, lines are pulled down from the top, and cross strokes come last. It has been the standard first print in many American schools for decades. On these sheets a, b, d, g, h, m, n, p, q, r, u and y are each drawn in one movement, pushing back up the line instead of lifting the pencil, the way many classrooms, including those using a Zaner-Bloser-style program, teach them; the digit 1 is one straight line, and the 9 is a single stroke, circle first, then down. The pencil lifts only where a letter really has separate parts, such as the cross on t or the dot on i.

Its strength is simplicity. A kindergartner who can draw a circle and a line already has the raw material for most of the alphabet, and the upright shapes look like the letters in picture books. The trade-off, which slanted print styles try to address, is that upright letters with no exit strokes do not flow naturally into cursive, so the move to joined writing later means learning new shapes. Other countries made different choices, often starting with a sloped hand and exit flicks; our overview of handwriting styles by country sets them side by side.

Choosing a letter size by grade

Letter size on PencilPage is measured from the top line to the baseline, the way most primary paper is labeled. The table gives common starting points. Children vary widely within one class, so treat a row as a first guess and adjust after watching a child write a line or two.

If a child's letters drift above the top line or spread far below it, go one size up. If letters float in the middle with lots of space around them, the size is probably too big for that child's control and you can step down.

Looped cursive for second and third grade

When the class reaches cursive, switch the Handwriting style menu to US cursive, traditional. It is a slanted hand with loops on tall letters such as l, h and b, loops below the line on g, j and y, and joins that come from the font's own connecting strokes. The font is Playwrite US Trad from the open-source Playwrite family by TypeTogether, which its designers describe as following the traditional American cursive model.

Many teachers introduce cursive in groups that share a beginning stroke, for example i, t, u and w, which all start with an upward curve from the baseline, before moving on to letters that start with a curve over the top, such as a, d and g. Type one group per line and the sheet becomes a lesson. Note that cursive rows are traced as a dashed outline of each letter and carry no arrows; the print styles are the ones with stroke order. For a full A to Z reference, the cursive alphabet chart prints every pair on one page. Teachers near the border sometimes prefer the Canadian cursive and print sheets for students arriving from Canadian schools.

Pulling back the support across the school year

In September, a kindergarten sheet might show arrows and a start dot on every letter, a dark example, three faded copies and a single empty row. That is a lot of help, and it should be. By winter, most children know where the common letters begin, so set Stroke arrows and numbers to First letter and leave the start dots on. In spring, try arrows off, start dots on the first letter only, one traced copy and two or three empty rows.

Each step tells you something. If a child's letters fall apart the moment arrows disappear, go back a step for that group of letters only, rather than for the whole alphabet. Tall-line letters such as l, t and h usually settle early; round letters that start at the top right, such as a, d, g and q, often need the dot longer, because the natural pull is to start at the bottom or to circle the wrong way.

Numbers deserve the same care. The number tracing worksheets use the same stroke data, so digits that children often build in odd orders show their arrows too: the 5 with its two numbered strokes, and the 8 as one continuous figure.

Lines that look like primary paper

Every row has a solid top line, a dashed midline, a solid baseline and a faint line below for descenders. Under Guide lines, Blue and red colors the top and midline blue and the baseline red, the look many people know from classroom writing tablets. Gray keeps everything neutral for photocopying, and 3 lines drops the descender line for a cleaner page once children no longer need it. Dotted thirds splits the row into three equal bands with dotted middle lines.

If you only want empty ruled pages, the printable handwriting paper generator draws the same lines in all seven sizes with nothing to trace, from one page to ten.

Name sheets for a kindergarten class of 22

The first word most children want to write is their own name. Rather than making 22 separate sheets, paste the class list into the name tracing generator, one name per line; One page per name is on from the start. You get a single PDF with a page for each child, every name in ball-and-stick print with start dots and arrows.

Names typed there stay in your browser and are not uploaded. If you save the class list, it is kept on this device and offered in every generator with a list box, so the same names can fill a bingo game or a word search later in the year.