I have heard a lot about the handwriting program, Handwriting Without Tears, for many years now, but I have never even taken a peek at it til now! I honestly did not think that I had kids in the right age group for this program! But, I happily found out that I was wrong and they had books available for my 2nd grade son, Printing Power!
Boy, oh boy! I have mentioned before that teaching my boy has been VERY different than teaching my girls. 🙂 Fun, yes. But, a challenge, most certainly! So, admitting that I have had trouble in being consistent AND finding materials for him to use has been difficult for me. I’ve been thrilled with the opportunity to review this product for him!!
Since my third child is a boy AND the baby, I admit, we have possibly contributed a tiny bit to his ummm, rotten-ness. But, at the same time, I love the advantages of homeschooling that allow me to let my “kids be kids.” They play outside a lot, they build forts, they jump on the trampoline…this makes up many hours in their day. And, it goes without saying, my son is all boy. He isn’t interested in reading, writing or anything of the sort.
But, we have gotten into a better routine of doing a LITTLE BIT everyday…and he is progressing quite well in all areas. I have been giving him various free pages printed from the internet or verses for copywork, etc. But, I was happy to try out Handwriting Without Tears because it would relieve me of having to find something every.single.day for him. This way, he can work on 1 page at a time and there is never the rushing around in the morning of me trying to find him handwriting to work on. {Not that it has ever happened that way, mind you. ahem.} With Caleb’s attention span, we are currently doing 1 handwriting page per day.
So far, of all the handwriting pages we have attempted, the pages in his Printing Power book have been the NEATEST pages he has ever done. I attribute this to the program! I’m so thankful that this program has helped me to see that he really can write neatly when given the best circumstances and materials. I think he has been pleased with himself too. 🙂
I did not have to purchase this curriculum for this review, however, when I checked out the prices I was very pleased with how affordable this program is! The student workbook, Printing Power, is $8.25. When they finish this book in 2nd grade, there is also a beginning cursive book to use as a transition. You can get both of these books together for $10.25 as a set. The teacher’s guide is $9.25. I plan to start Caleb on the beginning cursive book as soon as we finish Printing Power. That is not too bad for a year’s worth of handwriting!
I wanted to mention that while I’m super pleased with the progress Caleb has made in handwriting with this program, I’m also excited because in my opinion, this program has helped him with phonics, language arts and reading. He is sounding out words that he is writing, he is learning to capitalize sentences and end them with punctuation.
Handwriting Without Tears is much more than a handwriting program. I only wish I had found it earlier to use with all my kids! 🙂
One final thing I wanted to mention is that Handwriting without Tears has a new APP to go along with their program!! If I had a younger child (boo) I would have LOVED to try this out!! Since we have an ipad, I am always looking for educational things for my kiddos to do on there. If you have preschoolers, kindergartners or first graders, you might want to check out the Wet-Dry-Try app!
If you’d like to read what other homeschool families think about Handwriting Without Tears, please check out the TOS crew blog!
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