handwriting

I don’t have experience with either of those curriculums but we started Delightful Handwriting this summer with my 5 yo ds.  He loves it!  I am starting a K year in September but he was begging to learn to write his letters so I ordered it and we have been doing it for a couple of months now.  We only spend about 10 minutes a day on each lesson and he loves when he gets to copy words and not just letters.   

I am sure others that have used HWT or RFH will chime.

If she already knows how to form her letters and just needs more practice, I would go with A Reason for Handwriting personally. (I have one of their workbooks, although I haven’t started it with my ds yet.) Handwriting Without Tears is probably going to be more appropriate for a child just starting out or really struggling with letter formation (from what I’ve seen of it, haven’t actually used it with my kids), and their font/style is very different from the usual ones, so it may be confusing to her if she has already learned her letter formation using something different. Or if more practice is more what she really needs, you could even just skip a workbook entirely and just start doing some simple copywork with her – starting with even one or two words each day and building up from there.

HTH some,

Jen

I am using HWT for my DS5. He cannot form his letters on his own yet, so this is perfect for him. I bought just about every tool to help him learn how to form the letters, so it was a hefty price, but it is way cheaper than private school, and I will use it with his little brother down the road. Also, when we are finished with it I can sell it.

We used HWT and enjoyed it but I started the PreK book when dd was 3 years old so all the extra stuff on forming letters was very helpful.  I will definately be using it again for ds when he starts to show interest.  Their method of learning on the slate first makes it much more difficult to mess up the letters. 

If your child already knows how to form most of the letters I would look into a copywork book like this one.  If you sign up for their email list they send you a $5 coupon code which actually pays for one of their copywork books.  You can get it for free! The books are very nicely done IMO and you can print out the pages as many times as you need. 

Oh! I forgot to add that we are now able to do Bible verses or famous quotes for copy work now that we can make our own with Start Write.

Amy – I had a similar experience with my ds.  I started Cursive First with him, he did it in “grade” 1 and (a slightly different version) in grade2.  His cursive was nice (assuming he was copying a sample….) – but anytime he was writing on his own, it was this horride pre-school non-taught print.  And my daughter couldn’t even write a clear letter with the program we were using….

So – I did a bunch of thinking, etc – and we used Penny Gardner’s Italic handwriting program.  The cool thing with it, is after you do the Italic Print, it is a small job to learn a few joins, and you have Italic cursive.  I also suddenly realized that my handwriting is also Italics (well, roughly… I did the standard print in school – cursive in grade 3… and in grade 6 found a book my mom had bought, I guess to improve her own handwriting… and adjusted my handwriting with that….  so it tends to be a mix of all that!)

One thing that was cool with doing the Penny Gardner’s Italic program was that she has videos on Youtube… so I let HER teach the kids!  They liked doing the video program… and it worked well.

My son’s writing is much better (a little less “impressive” than the cursive…).  My daughter’s still needs some work – but when you consider I couldn’t get a single letter (in the style we were doing) last year – it is much improved.

Oh, I also found a free italics font – and a program that goes with the font to add in the joins if you need the italic handwriting.  It isn’t identical to the “font” used by Penny Gardner – but it is close enough!

Well Amy,  

when I was a kid, in Gov’t School… you learned Print in Grade 1, and Cursive in Grade 3.  It didn’t seem to confuse anyone…

So no, I don’t think having done Cursive in K and Print/Manuscript/Italic or whatever in Grade 2…   Kids are resiliant.

If Italic isn’t something you’d be interested in, then that’s fine.  Teach her Manuscript, and also still require copywork in Cursive. (so she doesn’t lose it.)  I let my son “lose” cursive, because I’ll teach him the joined Italic (probably this year)

Sorry I’m not much help otherwise!