Write the Word: A Word Bank and Eight Empty Lines

The bank is still here; the first letter is not. Eight vehicle words sit in the dashed strip at the top of this 1st grade write the word page - bicycle, boat, bulldozer, canoe, car, ferry, jeep, tractor - and the eight cards below each hold a picture and a completely empty handwriting line. The child names the vehicle, finds its word in the bank, and writes the whole thing out, first letter and all, with the model available but never on the line.

Removing the printed first letter turns a copying task into a matching one. The child now has to choose between eight words rather than the two or three a starting letter would leave, and this particular bank makes that choice a real one: a boat and a ferry are both boats, a car and a jeep are both cars, so the picture has to be read carefully before the word is. The bank keeps the spelling correct while the naming does the work.

Print the PDF free and let the child point at the bank word before writing, so the eyes travel once rather than letter by letter. Eight cards is a full page at this stage. The first letter version halves the choice for a child who is still finding the bank hard to search, and the plain lines version takes the bank away entirely. When the words come easily, the abc order page puts the same vehicle cards into alphabetical order.