Customer Reviews

Letters and Numbers for Me-Contracted Edition

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I started using "Handwriting Without Tears: Letters and Numbers for Me" when my left-handed daughter was 4 years old. I appreciated the little memory aids to help us work on correct letter formation together. (To make a lower case t, start at the top, slide down, bump against the line, then cross it.) She tends to reverse letters, perhaps because she is a lefty, so the "Where Do You Start Your Letters?" song and use of the starting corner help her remember how to write them correctly.

Both of my children have loved the Handwriting Without Tears books, and done very well thanks to Jan Olsen's logical, incremental skills-based approach to writing. The cursive books are also excellent.

This workbook covers letter formation, starting with capital letters and then moving to lowercase. It focuses on proper technique, including where to start forming letters, letter orientation, and stroke order. I have used this program and the pre-k program with my sons. My 5 year old loves doing this. It has helped immensely with correcting reversals and cementing stroke order.

I agree that this book provides excellent instruction with little room for practice. Thankfully, the hwtears website has a worksheet generator that makes it easy to create copywork worksheets that match the style used in these books. The only thing that would be more helpful would be more of the "magic c" review pages and the grey box (for capital letters) review pages.

This book is easy to teach, even without using the Kindergarten Teacher's Guide. The TG does have some helpful suggestions for additional activities directed at body awareness and posture, which are both important for handwriting. However, I rarely referenced the TG and preferred to teach straight out of the workbook.

I have used Handwriting without tears to teach two of my children, one cursive and the other to print. I plan to use it again to teach one more child, plus the one that learned to print can use it to learn cursive.

Handwriting without tears is second to none when it comes to teaching the child to write. Other programs give young children perfect images that they cannot hope to duplicate. They can increase a child's anxiety as they see how inferior their own images are.

HWT meets the child where s/he is at. The examples of handwriting can cause an adult to cringe, thinking, "I don't want it to look like that! This is prettier!" and choose the other option. That's a mistake. HWT helps the child gain the confidence to know s/he can do it. My children taught with HWT don't compare their copies to the original in frustration at all.

The reason why I gave it four stars instead of five, is that while I would use it to introduce a child to print or to write in cursive, I would not use it to practice the skill in subsequent years. First and second grade materials differ only in terms of size. When I used it to teach my son cursive and then did it another year, he was not able to retain the knowledge of the capital letters, because he spent the year reviewing lowercase, with only a review of the capitals at the end of the year.

I will use it to teach handwriting, but once the skill is learned, I'll switch to a different product, so that what has been learned can be retained. I think that will be the least stressful option.

This is a wonderful program. I wish I had known about it for my older daughter. It teaches proper technique without discouraging little ones.

My 4-year-old son never fights me when I say it's time to write. He loves with and has absolutely no frustration with it.

I bought this book for my 5 year old son. He was having a difficult time writing some of his letters. This book has really helped him out a lot. Within a week after receiving this book, he was writing most of the letters all by himself without the help of the book.

This book takes the student step by step through the handwriting process. It gives just enough practice for the student so that he or she is not overwhelmed and enjoys success!

This book really helped my daughter with her handwritting. It was suggested by my best friend who is a reading recovery teacher and my daughter's 1st grade teacher. This book can be started as early as pre-k4 or Kindergarten. Practicing with this book has give my daughter confidence in her writting.

My Kindergartner was struggling with writing, he wasn't forming his letters properly. This booklet has been very effective for him because he only has to write 8 or 10 letters and they "build" the letters at the top of the page which makes him much more aware of how he is writing the letters. They have gray block areas where the letters are to be written and it seems to work much better (at least for my child) than lined paper for teaching uniform size and shape. As an added bonus, he likes writing time now.