Where to start: every free printable book, in teaching order
There are 57 free printable books on this site and 860 worksheets in them. This page puts them in teaching order: which one to start with, what comes next, 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.
- Worksheets for 3 year olds — the sixteen books that suit three, and why strokes and scissors come before letters.
- Worksheets for 4 year olds — the order that gets a child from a straight line to writing their own name.
- Phonics worksheets — letter sounds, blending, word families and rhyming, in the order they have to be taught.
- 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Coloring Book for Toddlers (example above, outline below) | 12 | 2-4 |
| Pre-Writing Line Tracing | 11 | 2-5 |
| Pencil Control and Grip Practice | 12 | 3-5 |
| Writing Activities for 3-4 Year Olds | 12 | 3-4 |
| Writing Practice for 3-4 Year Olds | 12 | 3-4 |
| Tracing Activities for Preschoolers | 12 | 3-5 |
| 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.
Three of these overlap on purpose and it is worth knowing which is which. Pencil Control is roads and mazes — the hand only. Writing Activities hides each stroke inside a picture, so there is a reason to make it. Writing Practice is the same strokes as a plain ladder, hardest last. Tracing Activities gives one big picture a page. A child who refuses a row of dashes will usually still do the picture version.
Stage 2 — letters, ages 3 to 6
| Book | Pages | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| Letter Formation A-Z (start dots and arrows) | 28 | 4-7 |
| 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 |
Letter Formation is the one to start this stage with: it teaches where each stroke begins and which way it goes, which the other three books assume a child already knows. 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 |
| Number Writing 0 to 20 (formation) | 12 | 5-6 |
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 |
| Tens and Ones: Place Value to 99 | 14 | 5-7 |
| 2 Digit Addition (carry and no carry) | 14 | 6-8 |
| 2 Digit Subtraction (with borrowing) | 14 | 6-8 |
| Addition and Subtraction Word Problems | 14 | 6-8 |
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. Two digit sums come last, and in a fixed order: tens and ones, then addition and subtraction without carrying, then with it, then the same sums as word problems.
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 |
| Phonics Worksheets for Kindergarten | 12 | 5-6 |
| CVC Words Book (stories and word work) | 32 | 5-7 |
| Digraphs and Consonant Blends Workbook | 32 | 6-7 |
The last three run in that order and are the reading spine of the site: sounds, then whole words in short stories, then the letter pairs that break the rules. The rest 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Matching Worksheets for Nursery | 13 | 3-5 |
| 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.
If you would rather browse by subject
This page puts the books in teaching order, which is the right order when you do not yet know what a child needs. Once you do know, the subject shelves are quicker — each one lists every book of that kind on a single page, with the count next to it:
- Tracing worksheets — dotted letters, numbers and words on the four-line rule, plus pre-writing strokes.
- Alphabet worksheets A-Z — formation arrows, matching and dot-to-dot, in the order letters are taught.
- Phonics worksheets — letter sounds, blending, CVC words, digraphs and blends.
- Class 1 maths worksheets — the eleven maths books a six-year-old needs, in the order that gets to adding without counting on fingers.
- Math worksheets — counting, number writing, ten frames, number bonds, addition and subtraction.
- Fine motor worksheets — pencil control, grip practice, cutting and mazes.
- Puzzle worksheets — patterns, odd one out, spot the difference and symmetry.
- Coloring pages — thick outlines built for a crayon tip, from toddler shapes upward.
What these are, and what they cost
Nothing. All 57 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.