Trace the Picture, Say Its Name and Trace the Word

Four picture cards fill the page in two rows. The first card shows a sun, the second a fish, the third a cat and the fourth an apple. Each picture is drawn in fine dashes, and under it, on a set of writing lines, the picture's name is printed in dashed school letters: sun, fish, cat, apple. The words are short, so every letter is big enough to trace, and they sit exactly on the lines the way children are taught to write them.

This page links a picture to its spoken word and then to its written word. First the child traces the picture. Then the child says its name aloud, which helps to hear the sounds in the word. Finally the child traces the word letter by letter, following the same lines used for handwriting. Because the four pictures are things every child names the same way, the word always matches what the child says. Point to each letter while saying the word slowly, and let the child try writing the word again beside the card.

This printable PDF suits first grade and the end of kindergarten, where tracing pictures meets early writing. It is the only page in the set with words, and the words are written for each language rather than translated. After this page, the trace-it-then-draw trailer page invites the child to add a drawing of their own. Picture tracing follows the outline of whole pictures; abstract line practice, step-by-step drawing and numbered dot-to-dot have their own pages.