Japanese Writing – Hiragana あ to こ

💡Tips for Parents

▸ Why It Matters This sheet is a place to inspect and copy the printed hiragana models. Choose one character, look at the direction and placement of its strokes, and compare the attempt with the model. Leave the reference visible when needed. Completing this sheet does not establish mastery of Japanese reading or writing. ▸ Getting Started Master あいうえお first, saying each sound out loud while writing it, since hiragana is fundamentally about matching sound to shape, not just copying lines. Only move to かきくけこ once the five vowels feel solid, and point out to your child that け shares a straight vertical stroke with き, so tracing them side by side helps make that resemblance visible, and that each character in the か row still carries a trace of the vowel sound it's built on. ▸ If They Get Stuck If あ and お get mixed up, both having a loop, have your child count strokes in the air with a finger before picking up the pencil — お has the extra curl at the top-right that あ doesn't. For く, which often gets rushed into one lazy curve, slow your child down to make the sharp angle in the middle instead of a smooth curve. Whenever a character feels confusing, going back to tracing it in the air first, separate from the pressure of the pencil and paper, often unlocks a shape that felt impossible to get right on the page. ▸ Praise Points Praise stroke order over speed and over simply finishing the page: "You wrote あ in the right order, top to bottom — that matters more than finishing fast, because it's what makes your handwriting readable later." Since this is the very first hiragana worksheet in the whole series, naming it as the foundation for everything else in Japanese writing helps your child see these ten characters as the start of something much bigger, not just one page among many.

🎯What This Worksheet Builds

This worksheet covers the very first hiragana group — the five vowel sounds あいうえお and the か row that simply adds a "k" sound to them. Tracing あいうえおかきくけこ builds the pencil control and stroke-order habits every later row of hiragana depends on.

👉Next Step

Once these ten characters feel solid, move on to the さ-to-と group in the next worksheet, where single-stroke characters like し and つ test whether your child traces carefully even when a shape looks simple.