Free Printing Practice Sheets

One of my children had a hard time remembering which way the numbers 6 and 3 were supposed to go. So I designed a number writing practice sheet that proved to be a huge help in correcting those mistakes.

Now one of my children has a similar problem with reversing letters, especially a, d, b, and s. So I went back to the drawing board and designed these free printing practice sheets for her.

I tried to group the letters made with similar strokes together. Here’s the one for letters that begin with a counterclockwise circle.

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It seems to help when I talk her through the formation of each of these lowercase letters a few times until she gets it down:

• c: “start at the dot, then loop it back and halfway around”
• o: “start at the dot, then loop it back and all the way around”
• a: “start at the dot, then loop it around, back up and down”
• d: “start at the dot, then loop it around, way up and down”
• g: “start at the dot, then loop it around, back up and down, then curve it under”
• q: “start at the dot, then loop it around, back up and down, then kick it over”

Next up are the letters that begin with a downstroke. This page starts with the easy ones like l and i (it’s almost impossible to reverse those), but gets progressively hardly when we start adding humps for h, m, and n.

The trick is to write the entire letter without lifting your pencil (except to dot the i or cross the t). Teach your child to retrace the bottom part of the letter before adding the hump(s): “Go down, then straight back up, over, and down again.”

[click on image to print]

Here is a page of some more troublesome letters combining downstrokes and curves.

The hardest for us has always been b. Remember: “b starts at the top and goes straight down, then bounces back up and around.” And of course, p is made in a similar way: “p starts in the middle and goes way down, then bounces way up and around.”

[click on image to print]

And just so nobody feels left out, I made one final page. This one contains all the letters made with slanted lines, although they rarely cause as many problems as the trickier ones above:

[click on image to print]

If letter reversals have been a problem for your child, give these free printing practice sheets a try. Some extra guidance and daily repetition is sure to set things straight in short order. Pro tip: You can save paper by laminating your printing practice sheets and using dry erase markers to complete the drills.

Lastly, if your child needs help correcting number reversals, we’ve got you covered there, too. Check out the following post for ideas that address that problem: Number Writing Practice Sheet.