Handwriting book for K

[bethben]

I'm looking for a handwriting book that starts off with a lot of tracing over dotted lines or grayscale lines. A lot of books for that age have them practicing right away without a guide to trace over. The only one I've seen is Zeezok's presidential penmanship where they take 2 days to copy over the top of the sentence and then actually write the sentence. I need that with just letter practice. I'm seeing that my youngest would really benefit from the tracing aspect due to her perfectionism. I think it would help her brain/hand get the motion down better also before she started without the guide. Any suggestions or do I have to make one with my startwrite software?

 

Beth

[MeganW]

We LOVE Handwriting Without Tears.

 

Another option would be to purchase StartWrite, and make your own.

 

I will caution you against dotted letters. It's too easy for them to fall into a habit of connecting the dots instead of making smooth letter strokes. I wish we had ONLY done tracing gray letters / letters using a highlighter instead.

[Stellalarella]

HWT has a book for preschool that gives children letters to trace with crayons. We have found this to be effective for our kids.

in Kindergarten, the kids form their letters with a box and this is a wonderful tool.

 

Also, the HWT uses a small real slate chalkboard that is 4" X 6". The teacher uses a small piece of chalk (1") to form the letter on the slate while the child watches. The child then takes a piece of 1" sponge and traces over the letter formation. The child and teacher say the sequence aloud. For instance, when we write the letter B, I say, "Start in the starting corner, big line down, frog jump up, little curve, little curve. The child repeats erasing the chalk lines with the damp sponge. Next the child picks up a small piece of paper towel and traces over the wet lines 1 or two times to dry the slate. Finally, she picks up the small piece of chalk and traces the letter.

 

I think HWT is a fabulous curriculum and we have loved it very much. The books are inexpensive (about $8, I think) and once you know what to look for, the slate, chalk, small pencils and crayons can be found around town. Typically, a parent could order either the Kindergarten or 1st grade teacher manual and have all the information she would need to adequately instruct a child with HWT methods.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Andrea Lowry
proofreading

[lorrainejmc]

Another vote for HWT. Also, they have a worksheet generator on their website (you may need a code from a teachers manual to access it, though) which you can type in your own letters/words and print in draft quality so they can be traced.

[bethben]

I've done HWT for two children now. I was hoping to find a book that had more tracing a grayscale letter than HWT has. I saw that Sing Spell Read and Write has a bunch of letters that the child traces over and as the page goes on, the grayscale fades out on part of the letter until eventually the child is doing the letter independently. I don't want the whole program - I know you can buy the workbooks separately, but I don't want all the extras included that are helping teach the program.

 

Beth

[MathGirl]

This probably doesn't count as a "program" but I use Kumon books for my DD3 and it is mostly tracing over lines. We have the upper case book, but I believe there is also a lower case one.

[Jay3fer]

If you just want tracing grayscale letters, you could just make up your OWN copywork or letter-tracing pages - just go into MS Word or whatever word-processing program you use, type a few lines of the letter/word you want, add some cute clip art and done.

 

Sorry if this sounds unhelpful. I've made a lot of custom copywork, so it's kind of second nature by now. And in Hebrew there don't seem to be any dashed/"tracing" fonts, so everything I do is either grayscale lettering or "hollow" outline lettering for the child to fill in. I just use Word for everything.

 

ETA: We are doing HWOT, but... the pre-ETC books, Get Ready, Get Set, Go for the Code DO have grayscale lettering. They start with lowercase, though, which is not my preference. And because it's primarily a phonics book, the pace is probably slower than you want in a handwriting program.

[Jess4879]

We too are doing HWOT and love it. If you're after the tracing method though, I'd try a dry-erase book. It's an inexpensive way to do lots of letter repetition. :)

[pitterpatter]

We're finishing up HWT, Kindergarten next week, I think. We've loved it! Their Wet, Dry, Try on slate method was very effective for us. Take a peek at their Web site and see what you think. They have videos of actual children demonstrating the method.

 

DD started HWT at age 4 year, 4 months. I wanted her to get going with it because you are so limited in terms of other curriculum, if your child doesn't know how to write. There are some cut and paste, circle this, x that curriculum out there, but it is so minimal and most of the time, very basic. Also, math is tremendously difficult without being able to write numbers.

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

If you really want to have her trace letters I would try making your own pages with StartWrite. We use HWT and I feel that my son does better withOUT the tracer lines (we just finished the pre-k level where they trace letters). He was bummed when he missed the line. We are now using the K level and practice using a small chalkboard first. He is much happier with this.

[MistyMountain]

I feel you. I wish they had something where it starts with tracing then has them try but not with the chalkboard which we just started doing. We do wet dry try but she needs to see the correct move for the handwriting for certain letters. DD gets pissed if I make tracing letters but she wouldn't if it was in the workbook. She really needs it because she just doesn't get certain moves. I like HWT but there are things I don't like including starting with capitals then getting to lower case since you use lower case more. I would love something similar to HWT but that doesn't start with capitals and has some tracing letters. I don't have a computer or know how to make worksheets with tracing letters. I did just buy some dry erase books so maybe I get those out and use it with the lesson.

[bethben]

I just start the program at 1st grade to avoid doing Capitals first. I think it also makes more sense to teach lower case first since that is what they use mostly.

beth

[Guest skeetk04]

Hi Beth,

 

I highly suggest Donna Young's homeschool printables. She has a large variety that we are going back to for the same reason - my son needs more practice over dotted lines or grayscale letters.

 

Here is the link:

http://donnayoung.org/penmanship/

 

Hope this helps!!!

 

Laura in Virginia

[Tarreymere]

This probably doesn't count as a "program" but I use Kumon books for my DD3 and it is mostly tracing over lines. We have the upper case book, but I believe there is also a lower case one.

 

Another vote for Kumon. They have these books that have a sort of three dimensional feel to the graphics so it 'feels' natural to write in the right place.

But the only thing that really really worked for my kids was HWT.

[5Bmom]

 

www.handwritingworksheets.com works well for us and it is free.

[kristinannie]

Zaner Bloser has them trace the first line and write the second line on their own. It has two pages per letter (one uppercase, one lowercase). Then they trace words on the bottom line. Quick, painless and awesome!