How Can I Improve My Child’s Handwriting--Handwriting Without Tears
How can I improve my child’s handwriting? That is a question I get asked a lot - and if you find yourself asking that same question, then you’ve come to the right place.
Today I’m going to share with you today four reasons why Handwriting Without Tears is my go-to curriculum.
It Provides a Systematic Way of Teaching the Letters
It groups them into categories. The first grouping is Frog Jump Capitals. What that simply means is you make your first line from the top going down and you pick it up. You “frog jump” back to your starting point. So, for the capital F it will be, “Big line, frog jump, little line, little line.” It has these sayings for all the letters and they are grouped similarly.
It Provides a Way to Minimize Letter Confusion
We all know that children will often confuse these two letters: lowercase b and lowercase d. If you notice, in Handwriting Without Tears, they both start at different starting points. So, the letter b will start at the top of the line, and the letter d will start on the curve.
They each have their own separate sayings. The letter b’s saying is, “Dive down, swim up and over and around, bump.” But, for the letter d, they actually start by making a magic c shape. “Magic c, up like a helicopter, up higher, back down bump. That will help minimize some of the letter confusion.
It Teaches a Natural Flow that Works Hand in Hand with Age Appropriate Motor Skills
With limited motor skills that young children have, they’re prone to writing letters such as the b or d or g by lifting their pencil. In doing so, they can sometimes write a b by writing the line and not quite get the circle to touch it. It kind of comes out looking like the number ten. With a g, children will often make their circle, and if they lift their pencil, they are prone to making the hook under the circle, rather than beside it.
Handwriting without Tears teaches them not to lift their pencil on that letter. So, the circle stays touching the curvy line.
It Has Multiple Grade-Level Books for Manuscript
They go from Pre-K, all the way up to Grade Two. With the Pre-K books, you actually get one for uppercase and one for lowercase. In the uppercase book, they give the children a little bit of fine motor skill practice by giving them things to color. They can practice holding their pencil or crayon the correct way. You can move on from there to the kindergarten book, the first grade book, and the second grade level books.
One complaint I have heard about the books is that they don’t give a lot of practice for the same letter. They will be some pages with mixed letters as a review later in the book. Keep in mind that you can move as slowly as you want. You can have a stack of handwriting paper for your child to practice each letter, because the main idea is that you are using the method with the proper starting point and the correct sayings.
Now a little bit of disclaimer: I can’t make promises that your child might not have some tears--especially for those of you with strong will children, children with anxiety or those with a hint of perfectionism. So please keep in mind that if your child hasn’t had much practice with coloring or drawing pictures of their own, or practicing with a pencil or a crayon you might want to warm up for a while doing those sorts of activities before you start a structured program like Handwriting Without Tears. I think you’re going to enjoy it a lot more if you do that.