QLD Beginners style name tracing

• Who they’re for
• Making a class set
• The letters on the page
• A five-minute routine
• Prep to Year 2
• Beginner’s to Modern Cursive
• Common snags
• Printing and reuse
• Questions

Prep name tracing: who it’s for

These sheets are for Prep to Year 2 in Queensland. Children must turn five by 30 June of the year they start Prep, and Prep is compulsory before Year 1, so a Prep class begins the year aged between about four and a half and five and a half. A name is usually the first word they learn to write.

Queensland schools use the Australian Curriculum, which sets the handwriting goals year by year. Prep children form most lowercase and capital letters using the formations they’ve been taught. Years 1 and 2 write words in unjoined letters, with growing fluency by Year 2, and joined letters arrive in Year 3. QLD Beginners name tracing fits those early years, while children learn the Beginner’s Alphabet and before joining begins.

If your child is in kindy, the year before Prep, keep it to play: drawing, scribbling and the odd go at the first letter of their name.

Making a class set of Beginner’s Alphabet worksheets

1. Copy your class list from a spreadsheet and paste it in, one name per line, or import a CSV or text file.
2. Leave the size on Prep / Foundation for new writers, and set the rows to trace and the blank rows.
3. Tick “Sort names A to Z”, or drag pages in the live preview into the order you’ll hand them out.
4. Check every spelling in the preview, then download one A4 PDF with a page for each student.

For names with a second capital, such as McKenzie or DeShawn, choose “As typed” so the capitals stay where the family writes them. More than 100 names, such as a whole Prep cohort, come as a second set. Names are never uploaded: the pages are made in your browser.

What QLD Beginners letters look like

The Department’s Beginner’s Alphabet chart is the best model to keep beside you. It shows every letter and numeral with numbered starting points and arrows. A few features surprise adults who learned a different style:

• Every letter slopes, capitals included.
• Most letters start at the top, but e starts in the middle.
• The t is shorter than tall letters such as b, h and l.
• The y is a u with a tail, not two straight lines.
• The k has a small loop where the h has a hump.

Queensland materials also group letters by pattern. The Department’s Year 2 handwriting book practises the humpy pattern, which looks like a caterpillar, for m, n, r, h, p, b and k, and the scooped pattern (down, quick turn and up) for a, c, d, e, g, o, q, u, v, w and y. In “Lucy”, every letter after the capital is a scooped letter, so a page of Lucy is a page of scoops.

The chart draws heads and tails up and down to red lines, with the body between blue lines. These sheets show the same three spaces with a top line, a dashed midline, a baseline and a tail line (more in our guide to handwriting lines), and bodies sit between the dashed midline and the baseline. Our guide to the Queensland Beginner’s Alphabet goes through the letters in more detail.

Tracing the QLD Beginners font: a five-minute routine

Five minutes on most days is plenty for Prep. A routine children can predict also means less talking from you.

1. Draw the first letter big in the air together, saying the movement.
2. Trace the example row with a finger, then the grey rows in pencil.
3. Watch where each letter starts and which way it travels. That matters more than neatness.
4. Write the name on a blank row with no model, then circle the best one.

The Year 2 book ends a lesson with two self-check questions: do the body letters touch the middle line, and does the tail of the y reach the bottom line? On these sheets that becomes “Do my short letters reach the dashed line?” and “Do my tails reach the tail line?” Even Prep children can tick or cross their own page, and it makes them look closely at their letters.

From Prep to Year 2

• Prep, first semester: first name only, the Prep / Foundation size, “Capital first letter” and “Once”, with four or five tracing rows and one blank row. Solid grey letters are easiest to follow.
• Prep, second semester: try “Dotted outline” letters, which ask for more care, and shift towards two or three blank rows. Add the surname once the first name is confident.
• Year 1: the Year 1 size and “Fill the row”. One or two tracing rows are enough; the blank rows are where the learning shows.
• Year 2: the Year 2 size, close to everyday writing, as a quick warm-up before writing lessons.

Year	Letter height	Good for
Prep / Foundation	20 mm	Children still building pencil control
Year 1	15 mm	Letters sitting comfortably between the lines
Year 2	11 mm	Close to everyday writing size

Sizes are measured from the top line to the baseline. Long names shrink automatically to fit the row.

Beginner’s Alphabet first, Queensland Modern Cursive later

Queensland state schools have taught these handwriting styles since 1985. The Department’s QCursive resource sets out four stages: pre-writing activities, the Beginner’s Alphabet, unjoined Queensland Modern Cursive, then joined Queensland Modern Cursive. The third stage is easy to miss: children write the cursive letters separately before they join them.

Keep Unjoined for Prep and the early years. Switch to Joined when your students start connecting letters, and the same name appears with joining strokes. Joined letters are a Year 3 goal in the curriculum, but schools decide when to begin within their own program. The joins come from the font, so check them against your school’s chart. Our guide on when to teach joined handwriting covers the signs of readiness.

Common snags, and what to change

• The y comes out as two straight lines. Children copy the y in picture books. Show them the u first, then add the tail.
• The t is as tall as the l. Put a small dot a little below the top line and start the t there. A page of t on the letter tracing maker helps too.
• Tired hands after two rows. Choose “Once” and fewer rows, and build hand strength away from the page with our fine motor activities. The pencil grip guide covers what’s typical at this age.
• A move from another state. A child who learned NSW or Victorian letters doesn’t need to relearn everything overnight. Ask the teacher what matters most, then make sheets in the QLD style so home matches the new school.
• Ready for more. Add the surname, move to the Year 1 size, swap tracing rows for blank rows, and tick “Draw yourself” for a self-portrait under the name.

Printing name tracing sheets on A4

• Print at actual size (100%) so the letters stay the height you chose.
• Grey lines save ink on the school copier. Colour lines put a red baseline under every row, which gives Prep children a clear line to aim for.
• A page in a plastic sleeve becomes a wipe-clean card for a name-writing station.
• Send a copy home so families see the letter shapes the school uses, not the ones they learned.

Questions

Sources

• Department of Education, Queensland: Beginner’s Alphabet handwriting chart (2018)
• Department of Education, Queensland: QCursive, a Queensland handwriting resource for lower primary
• Department of Education and Training, Queensland: Year 2 Handwriting Book, Unit 1 (2016)
• QCAA: Prep to Year 10, information for parents and families
• ACARA: Australian Curriculum Version 9.0, English, Foundation to Year 3
• Queensland Government: Prep enrolments