Where to start: all 20 free printable books, in teaching order
There are 40 free printable books on this site and 572 worksheets in them. This page says which one to start with, what order they go in, and where the guides fit. Everything is a free A4 PDF, black ink only, and printable as many times as you like.
The first half of the list is handwriting: holding a pencil, then letters, then words. The second half assumes that is done and uses it — sums, number bonds, telling the time, symmetry, reasoning puzzles.
If you only read one thing
Start below the age you think. A child who is given worksheets a stage too hard practises failing, and the commonest single mistake is starting with letters before the child can draw the movements letters are made from. If you are not sure, print one page of Pre-Writing Lines and one page of Alphabet Tracing and see which one the child finishes.
The five guides
- The order to teach handwriting — strokes, then lowercase, then capitals, and how to tell when to move on. Includes which lowercase letters to group together.
- Pencil grip stages by age — the four normal stages, the two grips actually worth correcting, and three fixes that work.
- Teaching a left-handed child to write — paper angle, grip, seating, scissors, and why ordinary tracing sheets fail for one child in ten.
- Sight words or phonics — which words to memorise, which to sound out, and why the answer is both.
- How to print worksheets so they actually work — scale, paper weight, laminating, and the ruler check that tells you it printed right.
Stage 1 — before letters, ages 2 to 4
| Book | Pages | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-Writing Line Tracing | 11 | 2-5 |
| Scissor Cutting Practice | 13 | 3-6 |
| Big Shapes Coloring Pages | 17 | 2-6 |
| Shape Tracing | 13 | 3-6 |
These build the hand, not the alphabet. Cutting and coloring are doing the same work as the pencil pages and are often the ones a three-year-old will actually sit down for.
Stage 2 — letters, ages 3 to 6
| Book | Pages | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| Lowercase Letter Tracing a-z | 27 | 3-6 |
| Alphabet Tracing A-Z | 27 | 3-6 |
| Left-Handed Alphabet Tracing A-Z | 27 | 3-6 |
| Animal Names Tracing A-Z | 27 | 4-7 |
Lowercase first if you have the choice — see the order guide for why. The left-handed edition is the same content with the model letters on the right of each row; use it instead of, not as well as, the standard book.
Stage 3 — words, ages 4 to 7
| Book | Pages | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| CVC Words Tracing | 19 | 4-6 |
| Pre-K Sight Words | 11 | 4-6 |
| Kindergarten Sight Words | 14 | 5-7 |
| Color Words Tracing | 12 | 4-7 |
| Days and Months Tracing | 20 | 5-8 |
Run CVC words and sight words in the same week rather than one after the other — they cover opposite halves of early reading.
Numbers, ages 3 to 7
| Book | Pages | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| Number Tracing 1-20 | 21 | 3-6 |
| Counting Worksheets 1-20 | 21 | 4-6 |
| Number Words one to twenty | 21 | 4-7 |
Numerals first, then counting, then the words. If a child counts to twenty out loud but goes wrong on the page at 13 to 16, the problem is the number words, not the counting.
Puzzles and blank paper
| Book | Pages | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| Easy Mazes | 25 | 4-7 |
| Alphabet Dot-to-Dot A-Z | 13 | 4-7 |
| Number Dot-to-Dot 1-20 | 13 | 4-7 |
| Handwriting Practice Paper | 9 | 3-8 |
These are the ones to reach for when a child has had enough of worksheets. Mazes and dot-to-dots are handwriting practice a child will do twice; the blank paper is for whatever is being practised that week.
Maths, ages 4 to 8
| Book | Pages | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| Ten Frames 1 to 20 | 13 | 4-6 |
| Addition Within 10 | 12 | 4-7 |
| Subtraction Within 10 | 12 | 5-7 |
| Number Bonds to 10 | 11 | 5-7 |
| More, Less or Equal | 11 | 5-7 |
| Missing Numbers 1 to 100 | 13 | 5-8 |
| Skip Counting by 2, 5 and 10 | 13 | 5-8 |
| Tally Marks and Bar Charts | 13 | 5-8 |
| Telling the Time | 13 | 5-8 |
| 2D and 3D Shapes | 13 | 5-8 |
Ten frames first, then addition, then subtraction. Number bonds can be started at any point and are worth more than the rest put together — a child who knows them stops counting.
Reading and letter recognition, ages 4 to 7
| Book | Pages | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| Find and Color the Letter | 14 | 4-6 |
| Match Capital to Small Letters | 13 | 4-6 |
| Rhyming Words | 13 | 4-6 |
| Counting Syllables | 10 | 5-7 |
These are the listening and looking half of early reading, and they sit alongside the tracing books rather than after them. Rhyming and syllables are done out loud — see sight words or phonics for where they fit.
Thinking and looking, ages 3 to 9
| Book | Pages | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| Find the Odd One Out | 13 | 3-6 |
| What Comes Next? Patterns | 13 | 4-7 |
| Color by Number | 13 | 4-8 |
| Draw It in Four Steps | 13 | 4-9 |
| Spot the Difference | 12 | 5-8 |
| Symmetry: Draw the Other Half | 13 | 5-8 |
Odd one out and spot the difference train the same noticing that catches a misread word later. Patterns are the first algebra a child meets. Draw It in Four Steps is the one to reach for when a child says they cannot draw.
A twelve-week plan, if you want one
| Weeks | Two or three short sessions a week |
|---|---|
| 1-3 | Pre-Writing Lines, one stroke per session. Cutting Practice on the third day. |
| 4-8 | Lowercase Tracing, grouped by shared movement rather than alphabetically. |
| 9-10 | Alphabet Tracing A-Z for the capitals, plus a dot-to-dot each week. |
| 11-12 | CVC Words and the first ten Pre-K sight words, on blank four-line paper. |
Ten minutes twice a week beats an hour on a Sunday. Handwriting is a motor skill and motor skills are built by frequency.
What these are, and what they cost
Nothing. All 40 are free PDFs with no watermark across the working area, no per-copy limit and no sign-up. Print them at home, print them for a class of thirty, print the same page twenty times. The only thing we ask is that you print at 100% scale — here is why.