According to the “Yiwenzhi” (Treatise on Literature) in the Hanshu (Book of Han), the earliest Chinese character primer was the Shizhou followed by the Cangjie. With the rise of xiaoxue (the minor learning) during the Han dynasty, further primers appeared, including the Fanjiang, Jijiu (The Handy Primer), and Yuanshang. Of the character primers found among Han wooden slips, the principal examples are the Cangjie and Jijiu. Writing-practice slips bearing passages copied from the Cangjie and Jijiu were unearthed at both Juyan and Dunhuang. The British Library holds more than one thousand xiaoyi (inscribed wood shavings) excavated at Dunhuang that preserve text from Cangjie. The large numbers of such writing exercise show that Cangjie and Jijiu were important materials for literacy instruction among clerks and soldiers stationed on the Han frontiers.

The Cangjie was first compiled during the Qin dynasty as part of the effort to standardize the script. It was subsequently expanded and reorganized several times during the Han dynasty, but was lost sometimes between the Tang and Song dynasty. Text from Cangjie have been found among Han dynasty slips from Juyan, Dunhuang, Fuyang in Anhui, and Shuiquanzi in Gansu, as well as among Western Han bamboo slips in the Peking University collection. The Fuyang and Peking University slips preserve the greatest numbers of characters. The Cangjie was organized primarily by semantic categories. Characters and words with the same or related meanings were grouped into several broad categories and then arranged in rhyming four-character lines. Notably, a version of the Cangjie written in seven-character lines was found at Shuiquanzi in Gansu, helping to broaden our understanding of the work.

Compiled in the last years of the Western Han, the Jijiu (The Handy Primer) is the most complete surviving character primer. The text is arranged in lines of three, four, or seven characters, with each chapter presenting different categories of objects. It is therefore served not only to teaching literacy but also transmit knowledge. The Jijiu was very popular during the Han dynasty and soon spread to the frontier regions. Personal names listed in the text also frequently appear on the Han wooden slips, attesting its practical value. Bricks inscribed with passages from the Jijiu have also been found in Han tombs, indicating that its learners include craftspeople. After the Wei and Jin dynasties, the text circulated even more widely, and may children begin their literacy education with the Jijiu.

Writing implements in the Han dynasty included brushes, ink pellets, inkstones, writing knives, and wooden or bamboo slips. The writing-practice materials found at Juyan consists mainly of brushes, gu (polyhedral tablets), and discarded slips reused for practice. In addition to Juyan, Han dynasty brushes have also been excavated from frontier sites such as Majuanwan and Xuanquanzhi near Dunhuang. The gu found at Juyan and Dunhuang were used mainly for copying character primers and practicing writing. A gu is a multifaceted wooden object that can be used repeatedly. When its surface is full or mistakes has been made, the writing could be shaved off with a writing knife and the surface used again. Thin inscribed shaving cut from polyhedral tablets, slips, or tablets are known as xiaoyi (inscribed wood shavings). Because resources were scarce on the frontier, discarded slips were commonly reused for writing practice. Writing exercise were even carried out on the untrimmed pieces of wood with bark still attached.

Learning to write began with gaining control of the brush and to steadily producing strokes such as horizontal, vertical, dot, falling, and turning, or with practicing simple individual characters. Many writing-practice slips contain particular strokes written repeatedly, probably as exercises in brush handling or stroke formation. The most convenient and effective way to practice writing was to take documents in common use at that time as models and copy them repeatedly. This not only gave the learners practice in writing but also familiarized them with standard expressions and formats used in documents. Accordingly, learners often reused discarded slips and tablets, copying particular characters or phrases onto them. Most commonly, they repeatedly practiced a single character, although some also copied phrases from existing documents several times.

Clerical script and seal script were the two basic scripts used in official documents of the Han dynasty, but clerical script predominated in routine writing. Among the slips and tablets excavated at Juyan, the great majority were written in clerical script, although cursive script and a small number of examples in seal script were also found. Clerical, cursive, and seal scripts each appear independently on the slips and tablets, while some cases combine clerical scripts with either cursive or seal script. The Juyan Han slips date approximately from the mid-to-late Western Han to the early Eastern Han, a period during which clerical script continued to develop towards maturity. This transformation can be traced through dated slips. Han slips displayed pronounced wave-like strokes and elegant, accomplished calligraphy represent some of the finest achievement of literacy education in the Han dynasty.

In addition to clerical and seal scripts, Han dynasty clerks were also required to learn cursive script, as attested by the excavated writing-practice slips containing exercise in individual cursive characters and phrases. From the mid-to-late Western Han onward, cursive script became more common on slips, and examples of it far outnumber those in seal script. Judging from the unearthed Han slips, even the lowest-ranking officials had to be able to transcribe or draft simple official documents. Cursive script, being easier to write than clerical script, was often used for these tasks. It was therefore an essential script in Han dynasty documentary practice. Among the Juyan Han slips are examples of cursive handwriting left by clerks highly skilled in that art of writing.

While clerical script was the commonly used script in the Han dynasty, officially prescribed character primers were still written mainly in seal script. Most of the xiaoyi (inscribed wood shavings) of Cangjie excavated at Dunhuang display a strong characteristic of seal-script brushwork. Xiaoyi of practicing seal script have also been found at Juyan, featuring rounded strokes and slender, elongated character forms. Although clerks and soldiers stationed on the Han frontier did not use seal script in their everyday documents, they were still requiring to practice it.

The “Shihuozhi” (Treatise on Food and Commodities) in the Hanshu (Book of Han) says, “At the age of eight, [children] enter xiaoxue (the minor learning), studying liujia, the five directions, writing, and arithmetic.” In addition to studying the Cangjie or Jijiu (The Handy Primer), children in xiaoxue also learned liujia, based on the sexagenary cycle. The liujia refers to six sets of sexagenary-cycle combination beginning with the Heavenly Stem jia (jiazi, jiaxu, jiashen, jiawu, jiachen, and jiayin). By pairing the Heavenly Stem with the Earthy Branch, the sexagenary cycle was used to calculate and record dates. Slips used to practice the sexagenary cycle have been found at Juyan and Dunhuang, among the Han dynasty slips from Dongpailou in Changsha, and among the xiaoyi (inscribed wood shavings) in the British Library collection. Some were written in seal script, while others display a style between seal and clerical scripts.

Attested as early as the Warring States period, the “nine-nine” multiplication table resemble the “nine-nine table” memorized by primary school pupils today, and have a history of more than two thousand years. The Han mnemonic began with the largest number, “nine nines are eighty-one,” followed by “eight nines are seventy-two.” The first number, or multiplicand, then decreased progressively, and so on, in an order different from that used today. The earliest multiplication mnemonic discovered to date comes from the Warring States period Chu bamboo slips unearthed at Qinjiazui, Hubei. In addition, multiplication mnemonics have also been found on the Qin slips from Liye in Hunan, as well as on Han dynasty slips from Juyan and Dunhuang. A brick inscribed with the “nine-nine” multiplication mnemonic was excavated from a Han tomb in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, demonstrating the wide circulation and use of multiplication table.