Handwriting ?'s

[shaffer96]

My daughter is 4 1/2 and will be starting LHFHG this coming Fall. I am trying to decide on a handwriting program. She loves to write her letters and she writes letters and short words all day long it seems! I saw the sample for the K handwriting program where they have to trace the small circles and I think that would be too easy for her. Does this handwriting book include writing letters, words and sentences as well? Also, if I decide to go with another handwriting program, is it best to buy the traditional style or the modern style print? What style do they use in the schools for Kindergarten and elementary school, does anyone know? She has been learning with the traditional style so far, but if I need to switch to modern I better do it soon before she gets too far into it. Thanks for your help ladies! I am really enjoying this board and I can hardly wait to order LHFHG. I should be ordering this week, I am just trying to decide on the handwriting!

Laura

[Tree House Academy]

The Kindergarten book does NOT include sentence writing. I think the first grade book does. My ds6 is doing cursive with Pentime 3rd grade, so I am really not much help on which A Reason for Handwriting book to choose. Pentime 1B does sentences and words in print. Pentime 2 does print for the first half of the year and cursive for the 2nd half. Pentime 3 and up is cursive practice using sentences and then paragraphs. We love this handwriting.

[Kathleen]

Hi Laura! I wanted to pop in and welcome you to HOD!

I'm loving LHFHG this year with my little ones. You're in for lots of fun memories with your kids as they learn. I'm quite sure that there are schools out there that use EVERY kind of handwriting there is. So, it totally depends on the preference of the teacher committee selecting that curriculum. Your choice of handwriting style for your kids is also up to your preference.

We're enjoying A Reason for Handwriting. My oldest used it to start out with, and now Allison is learning with it this year. I like that it has the kids writing words with the goal of copying a Bible verse at the end of the week. Grant had fun with that. At the K level, the child is writing letters and coloring a picture of an animal on the back of most pages. The 1st half of the book is lower case letters and the 2nd half uses both capital and lower case and has them tracing the name of the animal on the back of the page. This has been a good place to start for us even though Allison was an avid writer before now. She loved to write "books" filled with all kinds of letters and even write words that we helped her spell. But, she needed the practice of writing the letters properly on the lines. If your daughter has already mastered writing the letters properly on the lines, then Book A of ARFHW would be a better place to start. I don't have a copy of it, but if I remember right it has the child practicing with words and then copying a verse at the end of the week.

Kathleen

[MomtoJGJE]

We are where Kathleen said... We started DD2 with ARFH - K because even though she LOVED writing she was not used to doing it on the lines. She still loves to write, and can form the letters better, but doesn't like handwriting because it's too much

DD1 is almost 7, so when she asked for a handwriting book like DD2 had I got her ARFH - A ... she's doing great with it, and if your dd already knows how to use the lines as guides and how to form letters correctly that might be a better fit.... but I don't know how it is broken down in LHFHG?? There is no handwriting curriculum in Beyond, so we just do one "section" of ARFH - A each day, and since we do it that way there is very little writing each day. Much less than DD2 has of just doing letters.

The biggest issue I would have with having a non-fluent reader doing 'A' is that I like DD1 being able to just read the words and verses and do it all herself.... I don't have to tell her what the words are and why she's writing them every single time we sit down to do writing and I could see that being an issue with DD2 before she could read.

[Mom4Him]

Hi Laura! My girls sound like they were a lot like your daughter was at that age - & they went through A Reason for Handwriting-K. They really enjoyed it, & as the others said it helped to teach them how to form their letters correctly & on the lines- & they really liked coloring the picture on the back- we would often have their pages hanging on the refrigerator for weeks. Now they are ready for A Reason For Handwriting A next year, & in the mean time, they are practicing writing all on their own.

[Mom4Him]

Hi!! I took some pictures of my girls' work with A Reason for Handwriting K. Kathleen did such a great job of explaining how the book "flows"- but I thought it might help to see some pictures!

[shaffer96]

Thanks so much for all your help everyone! I decided to go with the Kindergarten handwriting as Alyssa really does need practice forming the letters correctly on the lines. All of your comments were so helpful, and the pictures too! Thanks!