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We are about to start doing LHTH for the second time with my 3.75 yo daughter. Last year we did the Bible stories (A Child's First Bible) and the letter activities, and some of the art activities. She also used a prewriting workbook that she traced with dry-erase crayon while big brother was doing his handwriting workbook. This time around we are doing everything as written in LHTH (with A New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes), but I wanted to add a Reason for Handwriting K in place of some of the letter activities.

In ARF Handwriting K, the letters are ordered according to the strokes used, not alphabetically. I see that this would probably be better for fine motor development. But, do you think it would be ok if I had my daughter do the pages according to the letter we are doing for LHTH instead? I was thinking it would work better with LHTH if I matched the letters instead of doing them in order. The review pages wouldn't match up very well, though.

Or, should I save Handwriting K for when we do LHFHG... and find something else to use for handwriting this year? What would you do? Thanks for any thoughts!

I am certainly no expert, but it would seem like the answer would depend on your daughter. How is she doing with letter formation? Does she reverse letters? Does she already pretty much know them but just needs practice? How are her fine motor skills? Doing the letters according to strokes used would be a good developmental approach for a child who needs extra support in these areas. Otherwise, I don't see how it would hurt to do the letters in ABC order along with LHTH. As for saving ARFH K for LHFHG, I guess I'd say if dd is ready now then go ahead. When I looked through the K book it seemed like it would work well for preschool too. All children are different, of course, but my K daughter is using ARFH A right now because she is beyond the work in the K book. I don't know if any of this helps, but I hope so!

Blessings,
Erica

Larica wrote:I am certainly no expert, but it would seem like the answer would depend on your daughter. How is she doing with letter formation? Does she reverse letters? Does she already pretty much know them but just needs practice? How are her fine motor skills? Doing the letters according to strokes used would be a good developmental approach for a child who needs extra support in these areas. Otherwise, I don't see how it would hurt to do the letters in ABC order along with LHTH. As for saving ARFH K for LHFHG, I guess I'd say if dd is ready now then go ahead. When I looked through the K book it seemed like it would work well for preschool too. All children are different, of course, but my K daughter is using ARFH A right now because she is beyond the work in the K book. I don't know if any of this helps, but I hope so!

Blessings,
Erica

I agree 100% (although I'm not an expert either!!! ).

Dd has pretty good fine motor control, but likes to write her letters "her" way, kwim? I would like her to practice the right way to form letters. She doesn't yet know how to form her lower case letters - we mostly worked on capital letters with LHTH last year since they were easier for her.

The more I think about it, I think it would be better for her to do ARFH K as it is written, with the progression of skills so that she learns proper stroke formation. But do you think that will be confusing to have a "letter of the week" for LHTH that's different from the handwriting she's working on?

Last year I did LHTH and the ARFH K book with my son. We did one page every second day in the order that they are in the handwriting book, it didn't seem to bother him that they weren't coordinating. I would do it the same way again.

I agree that it would be a good idea to go in the order of the handwriting book. As long as she is ready for handwriting, this should work well. The next year, during LHFHG, you can just have her do ARFH A, which is also scheduled in the LHFHG plans. Enjoy LHTH - we're on our last time through LHTH with our third ds, and I'm already feeling sad that I won't be teaching it again any time soon... there is always the chance I could use it with grandchildren, right?!?

In Christ,
Julie

Thank you for your responses and advice. I think I will go ahead with Handwriting K in the order it is presented in the book. She will be so excited to have a "real" handwriting book like big brother!