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Year 1

Formation of b and p

I can form the letters b and p.

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New
New
Year 1

Formation of b and p

I can form the letters b and p.

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. The letter b has an ascender.
  2. The letter p has a descender.
  3. The letters b and p are formed by "going down and back up and around".
  4. The middle part of the letters b and p are x-height letters and sit in the middle set of the tramlines.

Keywords

  • Ascender - the part of a letter that extends above the level of the top of an "x"

  • Baseline - this is the line that most letters sit on

  • Tramlines - straight, parallel lines that we can use as a guide to help us write neatly and keep our letters the same size

  • Descender - the part of a letter that descends below the level of the bottom of an "x"

Common misconception

Children can become confused about which of the tramlines to start and end b and p on.

Explicit naming of the start and end points and modelling of this.


To help you plan your year 1 english lesson on: Formation of b and p, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Remind children to place a starting dot on their tramlines. Linking to your phonics scheme can support with the formation of the letters.
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Supervision

Adult supervision required

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Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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6 Questions

Q1.
Select the correct formation of the letter h.
An image in a quiz
An image in a quiz
Correct Answer: An image in a quiz
An image in a quiz
Q2.
Select the correct formation of the letter k.
An image in a quiz
Correct Answer: An image in a quiz
An image in a quiz
An image in a quiz
Q3.
Select the letter b.
Correct answer: b
g
h
Correct answer: b
h
Q4.
Select the letter p.
g
b
Correct answer: p
Correct answer: p
b
Q5.
Why do we use tramlines when practising our handwriting?
Correct answer: to keep letters straight
to distract people when writing
Correct answer: to keep letters the same shape and size
they look nice
Q6.
Place the line names of the tramlines in order from top to bottom.
An image in a quiz
1 - ascender line
2 - x-height line
3 - baseline
4 - descender line

Additional material

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