fbpx

Build Handwriting Confidence

A fresh approach to letter and number formation that lays the groundwork for reading, writing, and reasoning.

A group of cartoon animals, including a camel, seal, lemur, rabbit with glasses, and duck wearing a hat, sit together in a casual arrangement. The duck clutches a note with playful handwriting scrawled on it.

Name Practice Generator!

A free tool to get your students writing their name with ease.

A light blue-green hourglass background shape

Squiggle Squad was designed around the natural development of little learners. Instructional techniques and resources focus on the learning process—not simply the end result—so that handwriting becomes easy, efficient, and useful for the student.

Learning to Write One Stroke at a Time

Meet the Squad

Lines the Lemur

Bubbles the Bunny
Curves the Camel
Slide the Seal
Dash the Duck

Motor Skills

All Squiggle Squad resources provide activities that incrementally improve a child’s gross and fine motor skills needed for handwriting. Pathway Posters, Finger Fun, and Pencil Paths are program elements strategically designed to move young learners toward writing readiness and helps you monitor your students’ progress. They are designed to be fun and so developmentally appropriate that kids learn as they play. Exercises introduce movement patterns for letter and number formation before little learners even hold a pencil. Once ready, little hands practice pencil grip and writing posture while “playing” on playsheets with their new friends on the Squiggle Squad!

An illustration of an ice cream cone with three scoops topped by a cherry. A hand emoji, as if drawn in playful handwriting, points to the cherry on top.
The image shows a handwriting diagram illustrating the correct direction for drawing strokes to form certain letters and shapes, with arrows indicating the stroke direction and dotted lines marking the baseline and midline.

Stroke by Stroke

Each of the five handwriting strokes is represented by a member of the Squiggle Squad. This group of fun and friendly animals are designed to teach, motivate and encourage little learners in their handwriting efforts. Young students practice the strokes in isolation accompanied by their Squad friend. By naming the strokes and pairing them with an animal friend, teachers have a useful language to use with students when talking about handwriting.

Letter & Number Formation

Learning to form letters and numbers efficiently with ease is the ultimate goal of Squiggle Squad handwriting instruction. After introducing each stroke, the Squiggle Squad animals come together to “play” and form letters! Because the kids already know stroke direction and verbal cues, learning letter formation is less frustrating or confusing. Plus, the friendly, well-designed playsheets makes the new letter challenges fun and memorable!

Diagram showing the step-by-step process of handwriting the lowercase letter 'h' in both print and cursive styles, with arrows and icons indicating stroke direction and pen or pencil use.
Illustration showing the formation of the letter 'e' with directional arrows and a speech bubble indicating the phonetic sound /e/, perfect for teaching handwriting basics.

Symbol to Significance

Early in their development, children can visually recognize and name letters much as they recognize and name shapes. As students make the kinesthetic connection to letters, they begin to understand that the letters represent sounds. Eventually, they come to understand that the letters together create words that carry meaning. Letter names and recognition should be taught while students are practicing the strokes. Once kiddos are comfortable controlling their pencil and begin forming letters themselves, they will begin to connect letters to sound. Seeing, saying, and doing leads to greater understanding between what is seen and what is meant.