Best Handwriting Programs for Kids

For most children from pre-K to 2nd grade, Handwriting Without Tears is the program we would choose. It introduces letters in the order they are easiest to write, keeps the letter style plain, and teaches by doing, with chalkboards, wood pieces and songs alongside the workbook. It is also the only program here we found with ESSA Tier 2 evidence.

The alternatives each fit one situation. Handwriting Heroes is the pick if you want lowercase letters first. Zaner-Bloser or D’Nealian make sense when your child’s school uses them. A Kumon workbook is enough for a child who only needs more practice, and an app belongs alongside paper rather than instead of it.

One distinction runs through the whole page: a writing order is built around the hand, and a reading order is built around the words. That is why a good handwriting program introduces letters in a different order from a good phonics program, and why both can be right.

How to choose a handwriting program

Choose a handwriting program on six checks, in this order, and the brand follows from them. The kindergarten teachers we talk with look for the same list, and every program ranked below is judged on it.

Check	What to look for	Why it matters	How to check
1. Formation taught explicitly	Where each letter starts and which way the pencil goes, shown for every letter	Formation is a motor habit, and a habit is easier to build than to undo	Open a sample page: is there a numbered start point and an arrow on each letter?
2. A planned letter order	Letters grouped by the stroke they start with, not taught A to Z	Letters that start the same way reinforce each other (more below)	Find the table of contents: are the letters in alphabet order?
3. A plain style that matches what your child reads	Simple print close to the letters in picture books	One shape to read and another to write means two letters to learn	Hold the workbook next to a picture book and compare a and g
4. Short daily practice	Lessons of 10–15 minutes	A few minutes most days beats a long session once a week	Count the pages per lesson in the sample
5. Hands-on options	Chalkboards, building pieces, air-writing	They give a child who struggles with a pencil another way in	Look for a kit or activities beside the workbook
6. Fit with readiness, school and budget	A program your child is ready for, in the school’s style, at a price you will keep paying	A child who cannot copy a circle is not ready for any program; two styles at once confuse	Try the readiness check in our letter formation guide, and ask the school which style it teaches

One thing that matters less than it looks: whether a program starts with capitals or lowercase. Both work, and they are built for different goals, which the section after the ranking explains.

The best handwriting programs for kids, ranked

We have no stake in any program below: the only entry that is ours is the free worksheets in the last entry. Every fact about a program, including its price, comes from the publisher’s own site, store or sample pages, read in October 2026. The ranking also draws on our conversations with kindergarten teachers, and those are attributed where they come in.

Program	Best for	Ages	Starts with	Price
Handwriting Without Tears	Most children, pre-K to 2nd grade	Pre-K to grade 6	Capitals	$13.50 student book · $49.95 teacher’s guide (K)
Handwriting Heroes	Lowercase first	Pre-K to grade 3	Lowercase	$120/yr · $22 workbooks
Logic of English	Handwriting tied to phonics	4–7 (Foundations)	Lowercase	$11.99 student book · $88.16 Foundations A bundle
Zaner-Bloser Handwriting	A school that uses it	K and up	Lowercase and capital together	$19.87 student book (K)
D’Nealian Handwriting	A school that uses it	K to grade 5	Not stated	Not listed on Savvas’ page
A Reason for Handwriting	Faith-based homeschool families	K and up	Not stated	$23.95 student worktext (K)
Kumon workbooks	Inexpensive extra practice	4–6	Separate books	$9.95 a book
Apps: LetterSchool, Writing Wizard, Wet-Dry-Try	Tracing practice on the go	4+	Varies	Free to download, then in-app purchases
Our letter tracing worksheets	Free practice	3–6	Lowercase	Free

1. Handwriting Without Tears: best overall

• Best for: most children from pre-K to 2nd grade, and the program that stood out in our conversations with kindergarten teachers.

What it does well:

• Letters in the order a hand finds easiest. Kindergarten starts with capitals, which Learning Without Tears explains in one line on its own blog: “Developmentally, capitals are easier to write so we teach them first.” The capitals come in three groups by where they start, Frog Jump (F E D P B R N M), Starting Corner (H K L U V W X Y Z) and Center Starting (C O Q G S A I T J). The 2025 kindergarten book keeps all three.

• Lowercase builds on the capitals. It opens with c, o, s, v and w, which are the same shapes as their capitals, then t, then a, d and g, which all begin with the same c stroke. The b and the d sit in different groups so a child never learns the two look-alikes in the same week.

• Double lines. Learning Without Tears calls its two-line paper “a pivotal element” of the approach, “aiding children in placing letters correctly”.

• Hands-on pieces. A small slate chalkboard for its Wet-Dry-Try routine (a letter written in chalk, traced with a damp sponge, dried, then tried in chalk by the child), wood pieces for building capitals, and Mat Man, a character children build with the same wood pieces.

• Evidence. In a study by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Research and Reform in Education, summarized by Learning Without Tears, students in the program gained more than 3 points on a handwriting screener between fall and spring compared with students outside it, with the biggest effect in first grade. The publisher says that meets ESSA Tier 2, moderate evidence. The program was written by an occupational therapist, Jan Z. Olsen.

• Where it falls short: the capitals-first start, if your family’s focus is reading, since the letters in books are mostly lowercase. The full classroom kits cost far more than the books. And a child whose school uses a different style will meet a second set of letter shapes there.

• Price: $13.50 for the 2025 kindergarten student book, Letters and Numbers for Me, and $49.95 for its teacher’s guide, on Learning Without Tears’ own store. The guide holds the teaching script and the multisensory activities, so a parent teaching alone wants both.

• Skip it if you want the letters your child writes in week one to be the lowercase ones in books.

2. Handwriting Heroes: best lowercase-first program

• Best for: a family that wants writing and reading to start from the same lowercase letters.

• What it does well: it teaches lowercase first, which its publisher calls “the fastest path to real writing”, in five letter families grouped by a shared stroke, starting with the “Skydiver” letters l, t, k, i and j. Animated stories show how each letter is formed, and children air-write and finger-trace as well as write. It runs from pre-K to grade 3, and it was created by a pediatric occupational therapist, Cheryl Bregman.

• Where it falls short: its evidence is thinner. Handwriting Heroes’ own summary rates it ESSA Level 3, promising evidence, from a case study of two first-grade groups of 14 and 13 children at one school, measured before and after. And it leans on a screen: the student side is an online game, with workbooks alongside.

• Price: $120 a year for one educator account and one student account, which the publisher describes as suited to homeschoolers as well as teachers and OTs. Workbooks are $22 each. There is a 7-day free trial, and it needs a card.

• Skip it if you want paper and pieces rather than a subscription.

3. Logic of English: best if you want handwriting tied to phonics

• Best for: a family that wants handwriting taught as part of reading and spelling.

• What it does well: Logic of English teaches lowercase first; its own handwriting tips say capitals come once the lowercase letters are mastered. Rhythm of Handwriting is the standalone book, in manuscript or cursive. Foundations A is a full early reading curriculum for ages 4-7 in which children learn to write all the lowercase letters alongside their sounds.

• Where it falls short: Foundations is a whole reading program, not a handwriting program, and its scripted lessons need a parent to run them. We found no efficacy study.

• Price: $11.99 for the Rhythm of Handwriting student book, or $88.16 for the Foundations A bundle, on Logic of English’s own store.

• Skip it if you already have a phonics program and want handwriting on its own.

4. Zaner-Bloser Handwriting: best if your child’s school uses it

• Best for: matching what your child does in a Zaner-Bloser classroom.

• What it does well: it groups print letters by the strokes of the lowercase form (straight lines for l, i and t; circles for o, a, d and most others; slants for v, y, w, x, k and z) and teaches each lowercase letter with its capital. QR codes in the student book open animated letter models.

• Where it falls short: it is built for a classroom, and none of its materials is aimed at a parent teaching alone.

• Price: $19.87 for the kindergarten student edition, or $59.27 for the kindergarten homeschool package, on Zaner-Bloser’s store.

• Skip it if your child’s school uses something else.

5. D’Nealian Handwriting: best if your child’s school uses it

• Best for: a child in a D’Nealian school, or a family planning an early move to cursive.

• What it does well: D’Nealian slants its print and teaches what Savvas calls a continuous stroke method, so that, according to Savvas, 87% of its lowercase letters are the same as their cursive version. It runs from kindergarten to grade 5.

• Where it falls short: a slanted letter is a different shape from the upright letters in most children’s books. Savvas does not list a price on its program page.

• Skip it if the school does not use it: its main advantage is consistency with the classroom.

6. A Reason for Handwriting: best for faith-based homeschool families

• Best for: a Christian family that wants copywork from scripture.

• What it does well: the kindergarten worktext opens with 2 weeks of the strokes letters are made from, then 33 weekly lessons: 13 on lowercase letters, 13 on capitals and 7 of review, at 10-15 minutes a day. Each week ends with a Bible verse to trace and a border sheet to decorate.

• Where it falls short: the scripture is the point, which suits some families and not others.

• Price: $23.95 for the kindergarten worktext, on A Reason For’s store.

• Skip it if you want a secular program.

7. Kumon writing workbooks: best inexpensive extra practice

• Best for: a child who is already being taught and only needs more of it.

• What it does well: Kumon publishes separate books for capitals and for lowercase letters, each for ages 4-6, and either one can be started without any setup.

• Where it falls short: a workbook is practice, not instruction: nothing in it tells a parent how to correct a letter formed from the bottom up.

• Price: $9.95 a book on Kumon Publishing’s site.

• Skip it if your child has not been shown how to form the letters yet.

8. Handwriting apps: LetterSchool, Writing Wizard and Wet-Dry-Try, alongside paper

• Best for: a few minutes of tracing practice in the car or the waiting room.

• What each costs: LetterSchool is free to download, and its yearly access pass is $59.99. Writing Wizard offers lifetime full access for $9.99 and an add-on for practicing your own words. Learning Without Tears’ own app, Wet-Dry-Try, follows the chalkboard routine and costs $5.99 for a 3-student pack, though its App Store listing shows no update since December 2020.

• Where they fall short: none of them builds a pencil grip, because a finger on glass skips it.

• Skip them if you are hoping one replaces the workbook. It will not.

9. Our free letter tracing worksheets

Best for: free practice, printed at home, for a child who has already been shown how a letter is formed.

Our letter tracing worksheets cover the whole alphabet, lowercase first, on a three-line writing rule, with a blank half-line after each row of dotted letters so the practice ends in writing rather than tracing. They are free, with no email and no account. They are practice rather than a program: they carry no teaching order and no teaching script.

Why the order letters are taught in is different for writing

The order a handwriting program teaches letters in is built for a different goal from the order a phonics program teaches them in. A reading order is built to get a child reading useful words as soon as possible. A writing order is built around what a young hand can form first. Both are right about their own goal, and the difference explains why the top two programs here start in different places.

For writing, bigger is easier. Capitals are all one height, they all start at the top line, and they are made of straight lines and big curves. That is why some of the most popular handwriting programs, Handwriting Without Tears among them, start with capitals and then move to the lowercase letters that share their shapes. Letters that begin with the same stroke are taught together, the simplest stroke first, so each new letter reuses a movement the hand already knows.

For reading, the letters are mostly lowercase. Almost every word a child will read is made of lowercase letters, so a reading-focused family may prefer lowercase first, and that is why Handwriting Heroes is ranked here as the lowercase-first pick. It is also why our own reading order, explained in what order to teach letters, starts from the letters that build the most words rather than the easiest to draw.

Neither order is proven best. Reading researcher Timothy Shanahan points out that about 18 phonics curricula in the studies he reviewed each had its own sequence for introducing letters, “And they all worked.” What an order is built for is the useful question to ask of any program. How each letter is formed, whichever order you choose, is in how to teach letter formation.

After reading this, you can look at a program’s letter order and tell whether it was designed for the hand or for the page.

Why the letter style matters, and the one we use

A child who reads one shape of a letter and is taught to write another has two shapes to learn for one letter. The closer the letters on the page are to the letters in the hand, the less there is to sort out.

Print styles differ mainly in slant. D’Nealian slants its print so that most lowercase letters already have the shape they will take in cursive, which helps the move to joined writing and puts the letters further from the upright type in most picture books. Handwriting Without Tears keeps its letters simple and its cursive upright, so the cursive it teaches in second grade mirrors the print.

The style we chose. Our worksheets, and the letters in Wonster Words, are set in a rounded sans-serif chosen to match the shapes and proportions children are taught to write. The face is Fredoka, and its lowercase a and g are the single-storey forms a child writes, not the two-storey a and g of most book type. The dashed middle line on our writing sheets sits at the height of Fredoka’s lowercase letters, exactly where a written a stops and a b keeps going.

What teachers tell us. We talk with kindergarten teachers about handwriting often, and Handwriting Without Tears is the program that stood out in those conversations, because its letter style and its order are built for a young hand.

After reading this, you can hold any workbook up to a page of your child’s favorite book and see whether the letters match.

Does handwriting instruction work, and does it help reading?

Teaching handwriting directly makes children’s handwriting better, and the gains carry into their writing. In a 2016 meta-analysis in Educational Psychology Review, Tanya Santangelo and Steve Graham found that students taught handwriting wrote more legibly and more fluently than students who were not, and that handwriting instruction also improved the quality and length of what they wrote. One finding cuts against a common assumption: motor exercises on their own, without practice forming letters, did not improve handwriting.

Writing letters by hand also appears to help a young child learn what they look like. In a brain-imaging study of 15 children aged 4 and 5, Karin James and Laura Engelhardt found that the brain areas used in reading responded to letters the children had practiced writing freehand, and not to letters they had traced or typed. The study measured brain activity rather than reading, so it shows how writing a letter changes the way a child sees it, not that a program will make a child read sooner.

What this means at home: a program earns its price when it teaches letters explicitly and has your child form them freehand, not when it adds more tracing.

Can a handwriting app replace a pencil?

No. Dragging a finger across glass skips the pencil grip and the friction of paper, which is where the small muscles of the hand get their practice, and the James and Engelhardt study above found that tracing a letter did not do what writing it freehand did.

What apps are good for is the half a pencil cannot do: an animation shows exactly where a letter starts, feedback is instant, and a reluctant child will often do five more letters for a star. Use an app for a few minutes on the go and keep the real practice on paper. Our tracing guide compares the two side by side in whether tracing works better on paper or a screen.

Which handwriting program for which age?

Pre-K (3-4). Formal handwriting is optional. Drawing, cutting and building letters with pieces build the hand, and Handwriting Without Tears’ pre-K materials, Get Set for School, are built for that age. A child who wants to write their name can, and our name tracing worksheets put it on a page.

Kindergarten (5). The year most programs start in earnest. Handwriting Without Tears’ Letters and Numbers for Me is our pick, Handwriting Heroes if you want lowercase first, and a Kumon book as cheap extra practice alongside either.

1st grade (6). Size, spacing and speed, now that the letters are formed. Stay with whatever your child started on, or match the school’s program if it differs.

2nd grade (7). Print should be fluent, and Handwriting Without Tears and Zaner-Bloser both introduce cursive here. D’Nealian’s slanted print is built to make that step shorter.

When a child struggles with handwriting

Most messy handwriting at 5 is ordinary, but two signs are worth raising with your child’s teacher: letters that are still mostly unrecognizable near the end of kindergarten despite regular practice, and writing that hurts or exhausts your child. A teacher can refer you to an occupational therapist, who assesses grip, hand strength and coordination and is the right person to say whether something like dysgraphia is involved. Two of the programs here were written by occupational therapists, Handwriting Without Tears and Handwriting Heroes. Reversed letters at 5 or 6 are usually not a warning sign: why kids write letters backwards explains when they stop.

The thing to watch for is not neatness. It is whether your child can write a word you did not show them, from memory, with every letter started at the top. That is the skill a handwriting program is for, and it shows up in their own writing long before it shows up on a worksheet.