How Tracing builds handwriting from lines to ABC

What Tracing is for

Tomorrow Kid’s Tracing vertical is offline-first handwriting and pre-writing practice. The Home tile calls it “Lines, letters and more”—and that order matters. Beginners never jump straight into the alphabet; they build stroke control first, then shapes, then letters and numbers.

Parent tip: sit beside your child for the first lesson. Say the stroke out loud (“down, then curve”) so the path feels like a skill, not a colouring page.

The guided lesson path

Tracing follows a fixed pedagogical order:

1. Lines — straight, curves, and zigzags that warm up pencil control
2. Shapes — circles, squares, and other forms that reuse those strokes
3. ABC — uppercase letters
4. abc — lowercase letters
5. 123 — numbers (single digits 0–9, then teen numbers 11–20 as digit-by-digit sequences)

A Next-up card on the Tracing home screen keeps that path moving, so kids always know which glyph to try next. Stars earned along the way feed the same Sticker Book economy used across Tomorrow Kid.

On the 123 grid, teens are not one multi-digit outline—they open a two-digit sequence with spoken number words and the same star language as single digits. For the full walkthrough, see the Tracing teen numbers guide.

Core glyphs ship inside the app (TracingGlyphs.json), so the lesson path works without a network—useful for travel days, weak Wi‑Fi, and “five minutes before dinner” practice. Dashboard server packs sit beside those built-in categories as chip-row locale glyph sets (audio, age range, offline after first play)—see the Tracing server packs guide.

Auto difficulty (and when to override it)

Parents pick how much help the tracing engine gives: Auto, Easy, Medium, or Hard.

• Auto (the default) adapts from a rolling skill score—more help when the child struggles, less when they are flying
• Easy — wide path, lots of help for first tries
• Medium — the standard path
• Hard — thin path, little help for confident writers

Difficulty lives in parent settings so a child cannot accidentally make practice harder. Leave Auto on unless you have a reason to lock a level. For the Parental Check path, live subtitles, and when to lock Easy vs Hard, see the Tracing Difficulty settings guide.

Left-hand mode

Tracing includes a left-hand toggle (the L / R capsule on the Tracing list header) that mirrors the on-screen guidance chrome. Flip it once so hints sit where a left-handed writer can see them without covering the path. The glyph itself stays readable; only the chrome moves—scoring and Difficulty are unchanged. For the full walkthrough, see the Tracing Left-hand mode guide.

Pencil styles (cosmetic ink)

Under every tracing canvas, kids pick from six ink styles—Crayon, Pencil, Marker, Rainbow, Glitter, and Neon. The choice is purely cosmetic: it never widens or thins the guide path. The same swatch follows them into Fun traces, Words Trace, and free Doodle. For the full picker walkthrough, see the Tracing Pencil styles guide.

Practice extras beyond the lesson path

When the curriculum feels finished for the day, three practice cards keep the pencil warm:

• Trace your name! — uses the name from the child’s profile (grown-ups set it in Settings)
• Trace a word! — picture-words spelled letter by letter
• Doodle! — free drawing and stamps with no stars and no fail state

For how name tracing depends on Kid Profile (and why it records no progress), plus the twelve CAT → CAR words, see the Trace your name & Trace a word guide.

There is also a playful Fun category for traces that come alive—nice as a treat after a lesson, not as a replacement for Lines → Shapes → letters. For the eleven Fun scenes, come-alive payoffs, the Fun puzzle card, and Doodle privacy + stickers, see the Fun traces & free Doodle guide.

A calm way to introduce it at home

1. Open Tracing from Home and confirm the Next-up card points at Lines or Shapes for beginners.
2. Leave difficulty on Auto and finish one glyph together.
3. If your child writes with their left hand, turn on left-hand mode before the second try.
4. Celebrate the stars, then stop—or unlock Trace your name once the profile name is set.

What to try next

Keep the lesson path as the spine of the week, and use name/word tracing as a Friday treat. Stars still flow into the Sticker Book, so the reward language stays familiar while handwriting skills grow in the right order.