NSW Foundation style name tracing

• Who they’re for
• Making a class set
• The letters on the page
• A five-minute routine
• Kindergarten to Year 2
• Unjoined or joined
• Too hard or too easy
• Printing and reuse
• Questions

Kindergarten name tracing in NSW: who it’s for

These sheets are made for Kindergarten to Year 2 in New South Wales, where students learn NSW Foundation Style. Most children start Kindergarten at around five: in NSW they can start in the year they turn 5, if their birthday falls on or before 31 July. A name is usually the first word they write.

The NSW English K–10 Syllabus says what each stage is working towards. In Kindergarten (Early Stage 1), children form every letter in NSW Foundation Style when the teacher gives a verbal prompt. In Years 1 and 2 (Stage 1), they form all letters from memory, with consistent size and slope, sitting correctly on the line. NSW Foundation Style name tracing practises both in the one word a child cares about most.

For a preschooler, keep it light. The Department of Education is clear that school readiness isn’t about reading, writing and maths, so an occasional page for fun is plenty.

Making a class set of NSW handwriting worksheets

1. Paste your class list, one name per line, or import a CSV or text file exported from your roll.
2. Tick “Sort names A to Z” for alphabetical pages, or drag pages into any order in the live preview, such as by table group.
3. Choose the size for your year level, how many rows to trace and how many blank rows to leave.
4. Turn on the “Name ____ Date ____” line if pages go into a portfolio.
5. Preview the pages and check every spelling, then download one A4 PDF with a page for each student.

A list of more than 100 names, such as a whole Kindergarten cohort, is offered as a second set. Names are never uploaded: the pages are made in your browser.

How NSW Foundation Style letters sit on the page

The syllabus names the three movements behind NSW Foundation Style: a clockwise ellipse, an anticlockwise ellipse and a downward diagonal stroke. That’s why the letters look oval rather than round and lean slightly forward. While a child traces, check that round letters such as a, c, d and o travel anticlockwise, and that each letter starts where your school’s chart shows.

Teachers sort lowercase letters by height. Short letters such as a, m and s fill the middle space, tall letters such as b, d, l and t reach up, and long letters such as g, p and y drop below the line. The Department’s parent guide draws the middle space between two solid lines, with dotted lines above and below. These worksheets draw the same three spaces with a top line, a dashed midline, a baseline and a tail line. If the class books look different, talk about the spaces rather than the lines: the middle space, the tall space, the tail space.

A name makes this concrete. “Olivia” has a capital, one tall letter and four short ones; “Ziggy” has three letters with tails. Point out one feature per session. Our guide to NSW Foundation Style has prompts for individual letters, and handwriting lines explains the four lines.

A five-minute routine for Foundation Style handwriting practice

Short and often beats long and rare. Five minutes, three or four days a week, is enough for most Kindergarten children.

1. Write the first letter yourself while saying the movement. The Department’s prompts are short enough to say as you write, such as “Down, across” for t.
2. Have your child trace the example row with a finger, then trace the grey rows in pencil.
3. Watch the start and the direction, not the neatness. A wobbly letter made the right way is a better result than a tidy one drawn from the bottom.
4. Finish on a blank row with no model to trace, and ask them to circle their best name.

The Department’s parent guide describes how teachers build each letter in steps: a highlighted letter with a starting dot, then a letter outline, then only a starting dot on a line, then a dotted letter. The sheets can follow the same path: solid grey letters first, then “Dotted outline” letters, then blank rows where you add a small dot in coloured pen where each letter begins.

From Kindergarten to Year 2

Change one setting at a time. A typical path:

• Term 1: first name only, the Kindergarten size, “Capital first letter”, four or five tracing rows and one blank row. “Once” keeps each row to a single name.
• Terms 2 and 3: three tracing rows and two blank rows, with “Dotted outline” letters for children who trace confidently.
• Term 4: add the surname, cut tracing to one or two rows and give three or four blank rows.
• Years 1 and 2: move down a size each year and use “Fill the row” to build stamina. By now the sheet is a warm-up, not the lesson.

Year	Letter height	Good for
Kindergarten	20 mm	New writers building pencil control
Year 1	15 mm	Letters sitting comfortably between the lines
Year 2	11 mm	Close to everyday writing size

The letter height is measured from the top line to the baseline. Long names shrink automatically to fit the row.

NSW Foundation Style joined: when to switch

Unjoined letters stand apart, the way students write from Kindergarten to Year 2. The syllabus brings in joining in Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4): students join letters in familiar words first, then keep size and spacing consistent while they join. The joined writing is still NSW Foundation Style (the syllabus calls it NSW Foundation Style cursive), so the letters children already know carry through.

Choose Joined to show a name with the joining strokes in place. A name your student already writes well makes a good first joined word. A font joins each pair of letters the same way every time, so treat the teacher’s model as the final word. Your school decides when joining starts; our guide on when to teach joined handwriting covers the signs of readiness.

When it’s too hard, or too easy

• The pencil is a struggle. Put the sheet away for a week and build hand strength with play dough, pegs and tongs. An NSW Health paediatric occupational therapy team puts the three-finger (tripod) grasp at about four to five years, and warns against forcing it before the hand is ready. Our guides to fine motor activities and pencil grip have more.
• Letters start at the bottom. Practise the problem letter on its own for a few days with the letter tracing worksheets, then come back to the name.
• A long name and a short attention span. Choose “Once”, two tracing rows and one blank row. A short page finished well beats a full page rushed.
• Everything in capitals. Very common at the start of Kindergarten. Keep “Capital first letter” so the sheet models a capital followed by lowercase letters. Our guide on capital or lowercase letters first explains why.
• b and d swap places. Normal for a while; see letter reversals.
• It’s all too easy. Add the surname, drop to the Year 1 size, give more blank rows than tracing rows, and tick the “Draw yourself” box for a self-portrait under the name.

For a student who can’t yet produce handwriting, the syllabus allows other ways to show the same learning, such as finding letters on a keyboard or touch screen.

Printing name tracing on A4, and reusing pages

• Print at actual size (100%), not “fit to page”, so letters stay the size you chose.
• Grey lines save ink and print clearly in black and white. Colour lines add a red baseline for letters to sit on.
• Slip a page into a plastic sleeve and children can trace with a whiteboard marker again and again.
• Keep one page from Term 1 and print the same name again in Term 4. Side by side, they show the year’s progress.

Questions

Sources

• NESA: English K–10 Syllabus (2022), Early Stage 1, Handwriting
• NESA: English K–10 Syllabus (2022), Stage 1, Handwriting
• NESA: English K–10 Syllabus (2022), Stage 2, Handwriting and digital transcription
• NSW Department of Education: Handwriting in the early years (parent guide)
• NSW Department of Education: Starting Kindergarten, frequently asked questions
• NSW Health, Central Coast Local Health District: Pencil Grasp Skills for Children (2020)