A Reason for Handwriting vs. Handwriting Without Tears

[laurabelle1317]

Thanks for your reply Cindy.

May I ask why you recommend the chalkboard over a regular chalkboard? And if I am starting with the Kindergarten program, do I need the chalkboard they sell?

[Tracee]

I wasn't sure if I should even respond, because you've really received so many good reasons for either program. We actually use HWT, and I like it. I only purchased the workbook, teacher's guide, slate and block paper. I later ended up purchasing the golf pencils, because I found myself breaking all our pencils in half. I had a hard time trying to decide if we would continue using HWT for first grade or try ARFW. All children are different, so this is why I chose HWT for ds. He doesn't like to trace over letters, so I don't think ARFW would be a good fit for us. He is very visual and likes to draw all day. He had figured out how to write all the letters before we started, but he wasn't starting in the correct spot or following the correct order. I really like the way HWT teaches them to start at the top, and they follow a sequence. Some letters start in the upper left corner, some start in the middle (capitals). We also you the slate board that they recommend and ds has come to love it. I write it on the board, and he erases it with a dry tissue, starting at the top and following the correct sequence then, he does the same with a wet tissue, and finally writes it with chalk. After that, he does the workbook. It works great for us. The one big thing lacking with HWT is the omission of scripture, but I'm going to add that in myself. I hope that helps.

Tracy

[3musketeers]

Let me think back to K
The teachers guide has helpful hints in teaching the strokes by using the box of the chalk board. Start at the corner, make a straight line down the side. Jump to the other corner and make a straight line down the side. Now draw a line across the middle to form an H. That may not be the exact instructions, but hopefully you see what I mean. The corners and sides of the small chalkboard serve as boundaries and a help for those first learning to form letters. The author also has a great exercise called Wet Dry Try that goes with the small chalk board.

Hope that helps,
Cindy

[psreit]

I know you've gotten much info and advice already. I just wanted to share what has been happening with my dd. She has been going to occupational therapy since we adopted her. The O.T. specializes in HWOT, because it is used with children who have difficulties in eye/hand coordination. My dd learned to write her capital letters using HWOT. They begin writing them in boxes. When I put her in school back in the fall, she was just beginning to write lower case letters. She had to write on the solid-broken-solid lines at school. It was a struggle for her. I knew it would be, because we had tried the three lines before she went to school. She has had to write on those lines all year and, although she manages to write her words, it does not look pretty. I plan to use HWOT in the fall for that reason. When the O.T. had dd write words on just two lines, it looked much neater. I'm not sure why, but I think some of it is because it is less confusing to her because of some problems with her vision. I looked at A Reason For Handwriting and thought too that it was neat having them write verses. But, because I feel dd needs the two lines, I thought I could have her write verses on the two-lined paper. So, for me, the decision is because of the number of lines. DD basically knows how to form her letters, We just need to work on line placement. I'm sure either would be a good choice. You will know what method works best for your ds

I personally don't think you need anything more than what you have listed. Hope that helps.

[Tabrett]

This is just my 2 cents. I used HWOT preschool and K books. It teaches all caps in preschool and all caps in K. That was 2 years of all CAPS! It took me FOREVER to stop her from using all caps. Many children transition from caps to lowercase just fine, but many don't. And you don't know if you have a child who will struggle with the transition until it is too late! I think the newer editions of HWOT teach lower case earlier that previously (they must have been running into this problem). I love, LOVED all the hands on activities with HWOT. I love the wooden pieces, the music, the clay, everything......except the caps first method. I wish there was a HWOT that starts with lower case. I read a post where a person said that caps could be taught "incidentally" or as they are needed in writing. We only use one cap in a sentence unless there are proper nouns. I suggest you start with lower case letters. I personally like Italic. You can take the methods of HWOT and apply them to Italic.

http://www.italicbuilders.com

Has copy work with scripture and other inspiring writings. They are designed to accompany the italic work books HOD sells.

PS
This is off topic, but another thing I won't do again is teach my child to count from 10-20 the RighStart math way. She still wants to say 1 ten 1, 1 ten 2, ect... instead of 11, 12. Once my child learns it, she doesn't want to change! I don't blame her!!!!

[Tracee]

In regards to the off topic response, Math U See does the exact same thing, and it is becoming a bit annoying for me. In Math U See, the philosophy behind that approach is to teach them place value. It is supposed to teach them that 11 is 1 ten plus 1 unit. They use "ty" pronounced "Tee", so my child is walking around 1 tee 1, 1 tee 2, my mom heard him do this and she looked at me like I was crazy. Now, I just say right (1 tee 1) 11, and he is getting the point that I really want him saying 11, 12, 13 etc.



Tracy

[Carrie]

Ladies,

I'll just pop-in on this thread to weigh in as well. You've already received some wonderful responses and can easily use HWOT (or any other handwriting program that you desire) without affecting the flow of your HOD guide. We do find it to be a good recommendation for kiddos with special needs. However, we used HWOT for several years for manuscript printing with my oldest son (and again for several years with cursive) and found that for us it was not a good fit.

Without having an upper line, it was hard for my son to know where to stop his letters (and they just seemed to go up and up and up). The printing style used within HWOT is not a pretty or graceful font, and we found that it lends itself to large writing that is harder to make smaller. We ended up purchasing the special HWOT paper for my son to write on, as he was used to their two-line approach, so it didn't lend itself well to writing on regular notebook paper either. We switched to A Reason for Handwriting for manuscript in order to address these issues.

When we headed into cursive with my oldest son, we again tried HWOT. We came across many of the same issues, and even after several years of doing cursive the HWOT way, we found we needed to switch to a different program (BJU) to gain a more flowing style, to reduce the size of the cursive, and to gain consistency with being able to use it. My oldest son never truly mastered cursive, and we did HWOT for multiple years just as recommended. It honestly should not take years of workbooks to learn the basics of cursive handwriting. We now carry Cheerful Cursive, which addresses all of these concerns and have had great success with our next son learning cursive in only a year and then moving right into copywork.

So, these are a few things to weigh as you ponder.

Blessings,
Carrie