HWT - what do I NEED to purchase for 4 year old?

[JRmommy]

What do I NEED to purchase for my 4 year old who can write all of his letters both uppercase and lowercase? However, I'd like him to have a stronger foundation in letter formation. Could I get away with just purchasing the teacher's guide, workbook, gray block paper and wide paper? I also don't really know if I should start with preK

or K. Your advice is welcomed! Thank you!

[Mommy22alyns]

Sylvia could write all of her letters and I started with K as well. She's going pretty quickly through it and will be in the 1st grade book before long. I only ever purchased the student books, never a TM.

[Farrar]

Well, don't start with 1st, even if he knows his letters. We're starting the first grade book now. The focus is strongly on lower case. The letters are much smaller. I can't imagine a 4 yo doing it. A friend whose son knew his letters started with the 1st grade book in K, but she quickly switched and backed up to do the K book because even though he knew his letters, using the right spacing and paying attention to the lines, incorporating punctuation, etc. all turned out to be bigger challenges than she expected.

 

I don't even know if the teacher's guide is a must, though it's very useful to be able to look through it and get a feel for their method - if you know anyone else who has it and would let you borrow it for a couple days. I also don't think the gray block paper and wide paper are musts. I photocopied a couple pages from the student books of the gray blocks to use later. I don't think I could have used up a whole pack of it, though that depends very much on your personal style and how much extra practice and writing you expect him to do. We had little chalkboards from the dollar store and I used masking tape to make the right shape on them for writing.

 

Someone loaned us the wooden letter pieces and I found they were much more useful than I had imagined so I do think those are good. However, I've heard some people make them out of thick cardboard.

[Kirch]

If he can already write the letters and you just want to reinforce letter formation (i.e., make sure he's consistently writing them the correct way), I'd just get the K workbook. I made my own practice paper and printed it out as necessary.

[Celia]

I personally don't think HWT is a great fit for kids who already know their letter formations. I love the pre-K stuff for teaching those. However, if my child didn't have challanges with the fine motor skills, it would sure be handier to have him in a program that used regular lines rather than the HWT! It really limits what other workbooks he can easily use at this point, and I've even had to get rid of other programs on account of this. I'm hoping this gets easier with time, because it's currently a big enough pain that I'm strongly considering using a different program for my daughter once she's done with the pre-K, who is nearly at the same stage as your son and has much stronger fine motor skills than her big bro.

 

If you're set on it though, I'd start with K, and I'd suggest the TM as it does have some good ideas in it and it's not all that expensive. If he's at all shaky on his capitals, adding in the stamp and see screen would add some fun. We did use some of that grey block paper for extra practice, but HWT now has on their site a thing where you can print out their font in a couple of formats, so I mainly use that for his copywork. We also got one of those journal type books where you have blank on the top and HWT lines on the bottom, which has been handy for his science and nature journal.

[give_me_a_latte]

If your child already knows how to write then you definitely don't need PreK. It starts with crayon squiggles and pre-writing, progressing into actual writing. I'd start with K for the extra reinforcement and practice. The TM has lots of extras, such as activities and songs, etc. to go along with the lessons in the workbooks. So if you want JUST the handwriting practice you can probably pass it up. But if you want to make it multi-sensory and fun, then get the TM. Also, to access most of the online content (extras, patterns, song lyrics, etc) you need a code in the TM.

 

The block paper only helps them remember which letters start in a corner or in the middle, etc. So if he's already writing well you could probably skip that as well.

 

Honestly, if you're only going to use the student workbook I don't know that I'd bother with HWT. The beauty of the program is all the multi-sensory extras, IMHO. Without those it's just another handwriting workbook.