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I have been using Handwriting Without Tears for my 5 year old this fall. I decided to go with this because she is left handed, and from several reviews this seemed like a great option for left handers. WELL... I'm not liking it so much. The way they have the lines is even slightly confusing for me! Out of the two options that HOD recommends what do you feel are positives and negatives? Is there one that would be better for lefties?

We haven't used the HOD recs, but we are using 2 books from Handwriting Help for Kids, by Lisa Marnell, OTR. We're using the K book, Learn Letters, and the cursive intro book, Create Cursive. Rainbow Resources has this review of the program:
http://www.rainbowresource.com/prodlist ... egory=1978

We are doing cursive first with my Ker, and this program is great, even though it wasn't written for K. The books are very multisensory, and the font size is very large, which helps us a lot! They seem like they'd be great for lefties...HTH

We're using A Reason for Handwriting, and it's going great so far! My oldest used this as well for K-2. For K, it has letter practice and a picture to color on the back of the page. The next book has them pracitice words in Bible verses and copy them onto a nice sheet to share with someone. We really liked this.

I'm sure the Italic is good, too. I think it just depends on which style of writing you'd prefer your child to use. I have no clue if it would be easier or harder for a lefty to slant their writing like the Italic does. My youngest is a lefty...so I'll have to remember to ask you what you learned in a couple years.

Kathleen

[quote="krismoose"]We haven't used the HOD recs, but we are using 2 books from Handwriting Help for Kids, by Lisa Marnell, OTR. We're using the K book, Learn Letters, and the cursive intro book, Create Cursive. Rainbow Resources has this review of the program:
http://www.rainbowresource.com/prodlist ... egory=1978


i 2nd the Handwriting Help for Kids. i really like the layout of the book. i have a copy i don't need anymore. my son is a lefty, too. he has picked up on handwriting quickly. i think just having the right position for him writing is what helps most. and i don't know if i am right in this or not, but if his writing is neat, i don't force him to write the letters in the "order" shown in the book. i figure maybe it is the way his brain is working because he is using his left hand and maybe it is more comfortable to draw it in opposite order. Like for "Z" he will start at bottom right hand corner and and work his way up.

i may use the Creative Cursive as well when we get to that point.

Jenn D.

My dd1 is a lefty I also did not stress on how she forms the letters. As long as they are recognizable. She starts her "b's" in the middle! and actually forms her letters like they show here: http://www.lefthandedchildren.org/letter-formation.htm

I also bought left handed pencils and a guide for parents from http://www.thelefthand.com/ but I don't see the teaching guide on there any more.
I do remember the guide saying to tape the paper in place so the child could not move it. This encourages proper hand placement and avoids the crabbed upside down writing. Now if I could only get her pencil grip to be right...

Also I put any copy work on the right hand side of the page, and make her copy it to the left side of the notebook. This way the arm is not covering up what she is supposed to be looking at to copy!

[quote="Tansy"]My dd1 is a lefty I also did not stress on how she forms the letters. As long as they are recognizable. She starts her "b's" in the middle! and actually forms her letters like they show here: http://www.lefthandedchildren.org/letter-formation.htm

Love that site! Now i don't think i am crazy or i should say i can tell my husband we are not crazy for letting our son write how he feels comfortable.

thanks for the site.

Jenn D

We use HWT for my daughter who is 6. We used the k program last year and reviewed this year with 1st. The paper is confusing so I only use the HWT paper when working in the workbook for everything else we use regular 3-lined handwriting paper. I like the formation of the letters with HWT and how it is a multi-sensory approach to handwriting but the paper is confusing. My daughter's handwriting improved once we decided not to use the HWT paper for activities outside the workbook and she now has beautiful handwriting for a first grader.

We used A Reason for Handwriting with both of dc, and it worked well for them. We liked it because it was clear, short, had them write an appropriate amount of letters, and tied to Bible verses as they got older (in the A book). One of my sons loved coloring the accompanying animal pictures in the K book, and one chose not to. When my ds did Cheerful Cursive after completing A Reason for Handwriting, he transitioned easily into it. We used the big yellow chunky pencils from Miller Pads and Paper for beginning handwriting, and they worked great! Here's a link to them in case you are interested:
http://www.millerpadsandpaper.com/catal ... temID=1754

In Christ,
Julie