Frequently Asked Questions

Absolutely.

Tracing Words, Larger Sizes, Manuscript Lines (with OR without the Descending Line), Teaching Print Font (with OR without arrows), and User's custom text....

Tracing Words challenge level

This setting uses transparent gray letters (adjustable light to dark) which the preschool student can easily trace. We found that transparent gray letters were easier than dashed or dotted lines for emerging writers to follow the shape of the letter.

Larger Sizes

You can choose how large the letters are for your emerging writer. One inch manuscript lines are useful for brand new writers, and then the parent or teacher can reduce the size as needed at any point.

Manuscript Lines

Manuscript Lines are a staple for new writers. You can choose whether or not to use the descending lines to guide the basement letters g, j, p, q, and y.

The manuscript lines are also color coded in the familiar way, helping the young student to form the letters on the correct line (or in their correct “room” using the house analogy).

Alternative Lines

It may be your preference to use a two line, or one line for a "decluttered" paper. The bottom line only option is blue instead of red to mimic traditional notebook paper.

Adjust Letter Spacing and Word Spacing

You can give your little learner a bit more wiggle room in the early days by spreading the letters out. OR, kids needing to grasp the concept of putting adequate spacing between words, you can exaggerate the word spacing. Or do both!

Teaching Print Font

Teaching Print font uses single-story (a) and single-story (g). There is also an option of the Teaching Print Font with the stroke arrows. Both of these fonts have evenly-spaces manuscript lines to fit their font perfectly. Using the house analogy, this means that the “attic,” “first floor,” and “basement,” are all the same hight.

Print font, is another great option for emerging writers, however it does not have uniform sizes between “attic,” “first floor,” and “basement.”

User’s Custom Text

No published resource can possibly have the YOUR custom text. However with DittoSheets, you can build Sheets using the student’s name, phone number, and any other words that the young student should begin to practice.

The ability to customize text is a favorite feature of homeschool families who memorize text together. The youngest students can trace or copy the same text that the oldest students are working on!

After Tracing comes Copying

Once your student is ready to graduate from tracing, you can easily move him to copy pages. The given words are in close proximity to the manuscript line, so he can easily form his own letters while referring to the text just above the space.

High school students pursuing a memorization goal can absolutely benefit from using DittoSheets.

Many assignments, from various subjects, are given to older students where they are required to memorize a text... speeches, famous documents, lines in a play, lengthy poems, and Bible passages.

Using DittoSheets' steps 1, 2, and 3 is quite helpful in learning and meeting their memorization goal.

Using First Letters Only is extremely useful. It literally is a page showing the first letter of every word. This helps bridge the gap between almost memorized and fully memorized.

DittoSheets is also helpful when learning foreign languages. The mechanical act of copying a text word-for-word can teach the brain more effectively simply reading.

If word-for-word accuracy is important to your memorization goal, then DittoSheets will be insanely helpful.

Everyone will have their own recommendations for apps and songs, but for lengthy texts DittoSheets will give you the edge.

Specifically, using First Letter Hints, if the mechanics of writing helps you, as well as First Letters Only is very helpful.

Example:

Source Text of Romans 8:31-39...

First Letter Hints of Romans 8:31-39...

First Letters Only of Romans 8:31-39...

Maybe!

DittoSheets was created for parents and educators who have never found the “perfect curriculum,” and desire a level of control over their finished product that published ready-made books and worksheets aren’t able to provide.

Generally speaking, since it has no built-in content (e.g. a set of Bible verses or poetry) DittoSheets is not a curriculum on day one.

However, DittoSheets very easily could be a full penmanship or memory work curriculum. Plus Users have access to My Content, which affords you the ability to store future content. (E.g. Choose 18 Scripture Verses to memorize throughout your upcoming school year... now you have a curriculum.)

Ideas of how DittoSheets can supplement your other subjects...

1. Students memorizing lines in a play can turn their parts in to First Letters to make memorization a breeze.
2. Build copywork for students memorizing grammar rules
3. Your favorite Bible Curriculum already has memory work assignments. Turn those into DittoSheets' Steps 1, 2, & 3

Printables are finished PDF files. With any PDF, you cannot amend any part of it. (Think: buying a cake from the window of a bakery) Anyone can purchase a Printable at any time from our TPT or Etsy Stores.

Printables are an excellent trial run for using DittoSheets if you're not ready to jump in and have fun with the Toolbox.

The Toolbox is limited to Subscribers.

Within Toolbox, Plus Users have access to Sheet Builder, My Content, and Student Settings.

Within Toolbox, Lite Users can only use the Sheet Builder.

Using the Sheet Builder, it's YOUR text; you set all the look-and-feel nuances, and all the customizations are in your hands. (Think: you're the chef choosing the ingredients, flavors, colors, size, layers, decorations, fillings, toppers)

There is no one-size-fits-all answer, but here are some guidelines. This is a decent place to start, fully knowing that you'll amend the 'plan' as you progress.

For the imaginary fifth grade student...

THREE DAYS OF STEP 1 - COPYWORK

TWO DAYS OF STEP 2 - FIRST LETTER HINTS

TWO DAYS OF STEP 3 - MEMORY LINES

Day 1 - STEP 1 - COPYWORK

Student reads the text in its entirety.

Student copies exactly, paying attention to every detail, including spelling and punctuation.

Day 2 - STEP 1 - COPYWORK

Repeat

Day 3 - STEP 1 - COPYWORK

Repeat

Day 4 - STEP 2 - FIRST LETTER HINTS

Student reads the text in its entirety.

Student writes the words as he remembers them. The first letter is given for every word, and the blank line is the length of the missing word. The first letter is light gray and in-line, so it is intended to be traced.

Day 5 - STEP 2 - FIRST LETTER HINTS

Repeat

Day 6 - STEP 3 - MEMORY LINES

Student reads the text in its entirety.

Student writes the words as he remembers them. The blank line is given which is the length of the missing word.

Day 7 - STEP 3 - MEMORY LINES

Repeat

Can the student recite the text from memory?

Pro Tip 1

Print out All 7 days at once by assigning how may of each pdf to print.

Pro Tip 2

Plus Users should save this text in My Content. Once monthly print the First Letters Only Sheet, or the Memory Lines Sheets from previously-mastered texts in an effort to maintain memorization!

Veteran Tip

Do not be hamstrung by the above recommendation of number of days per each step.

Perhaps it is better for you and your student to do...

ZERO DAYS OF STEP 1 - COPYWORK

THREE DAYS OF STEP 2 - FIRST LETTER HINTS

TWO DAYS OF STEP 3 - MEMORY LINES

You should turn off any letters or numbers you don't want to appear in your DittoSheet before pasting text into your Sheet Builder. ESV.org and biblegateway.com both give the user the ability to turn these off. Look for the settings gear, "text settings," or "page options" in these online Bibles.

You can also delete those marks after they are pasted into the student copywork area.

Further, on esv.org (and other sites as well) when a verse is highlighted, a menu automatically pops up with options to copy the highlighted portion to you clipboard. We do not recommend this method.

Instead, Right-click your text, and click 'copy' the old fashioned way.

See these comparisons...

Gold star to you for observing this!

We programed the manuscript lines to exactly fit the font that you have assigned to that DittoSheet. This is intended to be helpful to students who are aiming to emulate that font perfectly. If the font itself has a midline taller than 50%, then the manuscript lines will as well.

If in your school the midline needs to be exactly centered between the topline and base line, then we suggest using the Teaching Print font for printing, and the Learning Curve font for cursive. Both are available in the DittoSheets Sheet Builder.

Mobile Browsers (such as Duck Duck Go, and Brave) are heavily privacy-focused, and for some reason do not play nice with the print button’s normal functionality.

This only applies to mobile devices and a select few browsers.

If printing DittoSheets FROM your mobile device is important to you, try another browser.

Or, print from your desktop and you should be good to go.

It works on Chrome Safari and Edge

Firefox Opera on tablets (need to req mobile site, not desktop site)

In the Original, basic Sheet Builder, users design a Sheet with four main parts: Title, Subtitle, Body (which is the Copywork area), and the Footer. (And in reality, any of those can be left blank and turned off.) ***But for simplicity sake, those fields cannot be moved or duplicated.

We wrote the Advanced Sheet Builder for the Educator who needs to create Sheets where the standard four-part format just won't work.

In the Advance Sheet Builder the user can...

1. "Add Copywork" or "Add Text" as many times and in any order.
2. "Add Horizontal Rules and Page Breaks
3. Load previously written content directly in to the ASB
4. Have all the normal font, spacing, sizing, and line-type freedoms that users love in the original Sheet Builder.

My husband and I are wildly outnumbered here. There are so many of you, and only two of us!

Therefore we'll do ya one better...

Instead of you having to wait for what you need to become available, we encourage you to Subscribe to the Toolbox and get exactly what you need today!

Lite Users have access to the Sheet Builder and you can create to your heart's content.

Plus Users have same access to Sheet Builder, but with the very helpful perk of saving your ideas and history in My Content, as well as assigning student settings for a fast user experience.

This is a really important question. It is not frequently asked, but I want you to know my answer anyway.

I was creating printable Ditto Sheets this morning, and Phil 3:9 was on deck. This is what it looked like on esv.org:

Do you see that dash at the end of the verse? It bugged me to end the verse on a dash character like that so I almost deleted it.

Then that phrase "rightly handling the word of truth" from 2 Tim 2:15 popped in my mind.

And I better not "add to... nor take from" the Word of God (Deut 4:2)

And still even Jesus said, "not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished."

Did you know how seemingly insignificant the jot/tittle/iota is? Have a look at this article from gotquestion.org. It's awesome.

So all these flashes of "NO! DON'T DELETE THE DASH!" rushed through my head!

If even the "insignificant" marks are important enough that the Lord says not to change anything, then I had better fall in line!

So you can trust that when I created Ditto Sheets Printables I only copied and pasted literally what esv.org had. No changes, I promise.

If a verse reference reads like "4b-5", for example, then that means the copywork starts somewhere in the middle of verse 4. "5-6a" means all of 5 is copied and only the first part of verse 6. These instances of truncated verses happen only when I need the certain snippet that is relevant for the memory verse topic. Using "a" and "b" communicates to you that there is more in the verse.

Further, whenever you see brackets, [ ], this means that the text inside the bracket is not exactly as shown in Scripture. Usually this happens when the nouns and pronouns are switch out for readability/clarity. You'll see this in books and articles a lot, but to my recollection, I don't think they happen on any DittoSheets printables that I have created.

When I am creating DittoSheets Printable PDFs, especially if it is Scripture, I copy and paste literally from esv.org.

Many verses start or end in the middle of a sentence. Therefore, the punctuation may look incomplete in the DittoSheet, but these are just instances of me being faithful to not change the Biblical text.

So when you see a verse start with a lowercase letter, or end with a comma, I hope you smile and appreciate that I will not alter Scripture for the sake of our grammar preferences!

See also the question "Are there any formatting changes to the Scripture verses in the Printables?"

There are no Handwriting Police on the prowl (that I know of) but here are some curricula's guidelines ...

D'Nealian

• K: ¾ inch ruling
• 1st -3rd grade: ½ inch ruling
• 4th and 5th grade: 11/32 inch (traditional wide ruled paper)

Zaner-Bloser

• K: ¾ inch ruling
• 1st grade: ⅝ inch ruling
• 2nd grade: ½ inch ruling
• 3rd and 4th grade: ⅜ inch ruling
• 5th and 6th grade: 11/32 inch (traditional wide ruled paper)