Letter Trace

What Letter Trace practices

Letter Trace is early handwriting practice with a finger or a mouse pointer. One big faint letter fills the screen, and your child traces over it from start to finish.

The trace is checked when the finger lifts: it has to cover the letter’s key points and stay on the shape rather than scribbling across it. Letters follow the teaching order, starting with s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, o and g, and the game covers all twenty-six.

Who it suits

Three- to five-year-olds who are learning to recognize letters and are not ready for a pencil yet, and older children who need to practice a letter they often write backwards. A finger on a screen asks for less fine-motor control than a pencil does.

How a round goes

Your child traces the letter. If a lift does not complete it, the progress so far stays, and a Try again button wipes the trail for a fresh start. A finished trace turns the letter solid and celebrates, then an “I did it!” button moves on.

One letter per round keeps it short. Three to five letters is a good amount before little hands get tired.

A tip for home

After tracing a letter on screen, write it big in the air together, then small on your child’s back with a fingertip and see if they can guess it. Moving from big muscles to small ones helps the shape settle.

Try next

• Big & Little — matches each traced letter with its capital or lowercase partner.
• Build the Letter — puts b, d, p and q together from a stick and a ball.
• The Bed — uses a fixed bed picture to compare b and d.
• Which Way Round? — spots the letter that faces the right way beside its mirror image.

More from “Letters and their sounds”

• Say the Sound — See a letter and say its sound out loud.

Read more

Behind in reading, or a late bloomer?: how letter learning usually unfolds from five to eight, and what to do this week.