What’s with all this tracing in board books?

By: Cora Astin

Have you ever read a board book and noticed the raised or textured objects that little ones can trace with their fingers? Those elements aren’t randomly placed there by accident! They are actually designed to help support early pre-reading and pre-writing skills.

As littles begin to trace different shapes and objects, they begin creating synapses related to fine motor skills, hand–eye coordination, and muscle memory for letter formation. (That’s just a fancy way of saying these actions help build important pathways in a child’s brain that link to the foundation of writing.)

While a few of these benefits are very obvious to see. Fine motor development and hand–eye coordination make sense because children are actively using their hands and fingers to follow the shapes on the page.

The less obvious benefit is how tracing supports pre-writing skills through muscle memory. Many of the lines and shapes found in board books for littles to trace are actually the building blocks of letters and numbers.

When you take a deeper look at how letters and numbers are formed, you’ll notice they’re made up of simple motions: curves, circles, and lines. These are the same types of movements that authors and illustrators intentionally include in board books for little fingers to trace.

By practicing these motions early on through tracing in board books, children begin developing the muscle memory they’ll rely on when learning to write in the years ahead, long before a pencil ever enters the picture.

Want to practice these skills with your littles? Here are some suggestions from our CLEL Bells books:

Let’s Go Home, Baby Puppy by by Carolina Buzio (2026 WRITE nomination)