The Letter Families Handbook
The Letter Families Handbook
The Letter Families Handbook
The system your school already uses
Four movements. Twenty-six letters.
Schools don't teach letters alphabetically — they teach them in families, grouped by the movement they share. Learn the four movements and the whole alphabet comes with them. This is that system, written for the kitchen table.
Real pages, not a preview
What's inside
The four families
Every letter with a red start dot and numbered arrows — so you can see where the pencil begins and which way it travels.
Capitals and numbers
A–Z and 0–9, each with its start point. One rule covers the lot: every capital starts at the top.
All 14 pages
The grip, the five habits every parent misses, and a page for left-handers that almost nobody writes.
Why it works
A letter can look right and still be wrong
A child who draws an a from the bottom up can produce something perfectly readable. The trouble is invisible — it's in the movement, and movement becomes habit. Teachers would rather see a wobbly letter formed correctly than a tidy one formed backwards, because wobble fixes itself and direction doesn't.
Curly Caterpillars
c a o d g q e s
Start at the top and curl back — anticlockwise, like a c.
Long Ladders
l i t u f j y
Start at the top, straight down the ladder.
One-Armed Robots
r b n h m k p
Down, back up the same line, and over the top.
Zigzag Monsters
v w x z
Sharp corners, no curves. Most children's favourites.
The DfE's writing framework asks schools to teach the movement of each letter, not just its appearance. A child who hears the same words at school and at the kitchen table isn't learning two things — they're learning one thing, twice as fast.
How it reaches you
In your inbox before the kettle boils
Order
No address, no delivery date. It's a file, not a parcel.
Check your email
The download link arrives straight away, and stays on your order confirmation page.
Print tonight
A4, designed to be light on ink and perfectly readable in black and white.
No app, no login, no subscription. Print it as many times as you like — the practice pages are meant to be reused.
Want the guided version?
This book is chapter one of a thirty-day plan
The Handbook teaches the movements. The Reception-Ready Home Plan tells you what to do with them — thirty evenings, one line a day, a chart for the fridge and a certificate at the end. And this entire Handbook is inside it, as Part Two.
See the Home Plan — £9.95
Before you ask
Questions
How do I get it?
By email, straight after checkout — usually within a minute. The link also sits on your order confirmation page, so it isn't lost if the email goes astray. There's nothing to install and no account to create.
Do I need a special printer?
No. It's A4 and it was designed to be printed on an ordinary home printer — no full-page colour blocks, ink coverage kept deliberately low, and every page still readable in black and white.
Can I print it more than once?
Yes, as many times as you need for your own family. The practice sheets are built to be reprinted — that's why they say “print as many as you need” at the top.
Is this included in the Home Plan?
Yes — the complete Handbook appears as Part Two of The Reception-Ready Home Plan. If you think you'll want the thirty-day plan too, buy that one instead; you won't need both.
What age is it for?
It's written for the year before Reception and the Reception year itself — roughly three to five. The letter families are the same system schools use from the first term onwards, so it stays useful well into Year 1.
What if the file won't open?
Email hello@purelittlesteps.com and we'll sort it the same day — a new link, a different format, or a full refund if we can't get it working for you.