fundanoodle vs HWT

[celticadea]

My older daughter (nearly 5) has been having difficulty with controlling how she writes. I'm strongly suspecting dyslexia and we are currently working with ST/OT for possible spectrum issues, specifically speech pragmatics and processing, low tone and some vestibular/arousal threshold sensory issues. I'm not sure yet if the "processing" is only auditory processing (certainly a challenge for her) or slow processing in general.

 

anyway, I am interested in trying a OT designed sort of program to help her fine motor control/writing. She can hold the pencil and can write her name but can't manage to make or trace letters and have them stay where they need to go (as she says "that one got wiggly!") or they'll start in odd places or go the wrong way around. The end shape is more or less correct but she went right instead of left to get there (if that makes any sort of sense! ). I notice that when she tries to do mazes she doesn't seem to get trying to stay between the lines. (do they make mazes like bumper bowling with raised edges?). She likes to draw pictures of people and has just recently started to be willing to color pages sometimes.

 

I like HWT in that the small chalkboard is designed for the kids to use the edges to get their lines right. I don't like how odd the letters end up looking and I've hear negative results from their special 2-lined paper. I don't want to have to reteach her to write to fix the oddities of this program.

 

I've recently seen the Fundanoodle program online and am intrigued. It was also designed by an OT but the letters look more 'reasonably' designed. My concern is that I think the dry erase board (instead of chalkboard) is bigger than the written letter because it seems to be the place to primarily work with the magnetic letter parts. I may be not understanding and maybe they do have the kids use this board exactly like the chalkboard in HWT. I've only been able to see little bits on line.

 

I'm considering combining them and tacking the little chalkboard and little chalks onto the fundanoodle program but I'm not sure if that's redundant or would be just confusing.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on either of these programs?

 

 

(I know comparing kids isn't helpful but I hadn't realized how much she was struggling until I noticed that my 2.5 year old was able to trace letters in a little workbook she was playing with nearly perfectly the other day. Admittedly she has phenomenal fine motor skills but severe speech issues...but that's a whole different topic :),)

[jetzmama]

The white board is great, but there is a sensory component of chalk on a chalkboard that I'd not want to miss. If using a program w/o the slate, I would grab a small slate and a box of chalk at the local craft store to replicate that sensory input. Think of it as riding down the road in a Cadillac vs. a 70's muscle car. The Cadillac is such a nice, smooth, comfortable experience that it is easy to miss noticing the feel of the road. On the other hand, it is hard to NOT notice the road conditions when riding in the muscle car b/c they were designed to feel the road. The smooth comfortable writing of a white board is fun and good, but the chalkboard makes the kids really notice and feel what they are doing (and like a road, a little 'rain' can change the surface conditions for extra sensory input).

[CraftyHomeschool]

We used HWOT (for K and 3^rd) and we had a love hate relationship with it. The parts I really liked; the REALLY multi-sensory approach, the manipulatives, and the "box" uppercase letters/numbers (seems to give them a space to stay in). What I hated; the two line approach to writing lower case letters, the workbooks (didn't like the set up and presentation of the letters/numbers). If you’re looking at the program DON'T purchase all the extras (unless you have the $$ to spend). I made letter shapes out of colored card stock and laminated them (template is in the K TE), worked GREAT. I also didn't purchase the slate chalk board, I found a small rectangular framed white board at the dollar store and painted the back with chalk board paint (I already had) and put a smiley face in the corner. The chalk pieces, just break regular chalk into chunks and the small pencils we just cut some of ours in half and put eraser tops on them, worked really well. We are currently using Zaner-Bloser handwriting workbooks but still incorporating some of the HWOT concepts. My recommendation, find a used manual and look through it, take what you think will work and use it with another program.

[amo_mea_filiis.]

Have you considered switching to cursive?

 

My ds still has no functional print writing, but cursive (copy work) is going much better.

 

Print or cursive, he can't write without a model, but the print isn't legible.

[Dmmetler]

My suggestion-buy the HWOT K teacher's guide, and read it-I haven't used Fundanoodle to know what's in the guide, but the HWOT guide really is the "meat" of the program-all the nice, multisensory stuff. Everything else is extra, or you can create it, and it's adaptable to any other program you'd want to use. I actually jumped to cursive with my DD at age 5, because she wanted to learn it, but used many of the HWOT techniques to teach it.

[celticadea]

thanks. after talking with the HWT lady and getting some understanding about the 2 line writing, I ordered some of the k level stuff. we may not go through the whole program but it looks good to work on fine motor control. thanks for the input!