Now, I want you to take a look at your page and notice how the lines are all evenly spaced. But if we try to write on every single line, do you see how crowded our writing can get?

So here’s what we’re going to do: if you’re writing on lined paper, I want you to write on every second line. That means you write on one line, skip the next, then write on the one after that, skip, and so on—just like that.

Why do we do this? Well, some letters take up more space—they stretch across two lines. Can you think of any letters like that?

That’s right! Letters like D, J, K, L, Q, Y, B, G, and all of the capital letters usually take up two lines. So to give your letters the space they need—and to help you form them properly—we write on every second line.

Here’s a little tip: before you start writing, it might help to make a small dot or dash next to every second line on your paper. That way, when you get to the end of a line and you’re ready to go back and write the next one, you’ll know exactly which line to skip. Let’s go ahead and mark those lines now!