Customer Reviews

Write Now: The Complete Program For Better Handwriting

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After a two page preface, this book gets right down to business. There is a quick introduction to the terminology used in the book followed by 2 pages of advice on writing tools and how to sit, hold the pen, and position the page. That is followed by a half page on the six essential characteristics of handwriting: shape, stroke sequence, size, slope, spacing, and speed.

This is first and foremost a workbook. You see the letters, trace the letters, and then copy the letters. Then you progress to copying sentences and full paragraphs. There isn't much in the way of theory here. Getty and Dubay show you what to do and then you practice. Repeat the same process for cursive and finally for edged italic.

Interspersed throughout are interesting asides about the historical development of writing as well as tips for practicing your own.

The overall focus is on ease of writing and reading, not on your ability to copy exactly the letterforms they have written. They recognize and discuss differences in size, spacing, slope, and speed. It is, after all, _your_ handwriting.

The most useful pages for me have been the overview page and the blank practice pages. The overview page shows how to write every letter, both capital and lower case, both in printing and cursive, all on one page. It is the page I open to when practicing. The practice pages with dotted lines for height of capitals and length of descenders have helped me develop a consistent width and height. I photocopy 5 every week and then fill a maximum of one page per night. This spreads out my practice time so I don't get burned out or bored with it.

I've had the book for about a month now and the improvement has been dramatic despite dedicating only a few hours a week to it. Though my writing has always been legible, it was messy and inconsistent chicken scratch. No longer. It is now smooth and even; and the italic style really stands out in comparison to other people's handwriting. The better my writing gets, the more I want to write.

I am very satisfied with my purchase. Considering how much I will write over my lifetime, this book is a bargain. Thanks to Amazon for carrying it. Neither B&N nor Borders do.

Yes! It works!
Write Now is an excellent tool for developing an elegant handwriting style; but it's also great if you'd just like to be able to read your own handwriting! High school(or even junior high) students will enjoy the course because it is designed for busy adults to use. It really gets right to the point; results are satisfying. I really can recommend this book

This book claims to improve your handwriting by providing excercises. This is actually the case. After going through a number of excercises (tracing and reproducing basic shapes and letters), my writing seemed to improve. However, from the 96 pages in the book, only pages 14-50 contain the actual excersises, the bulk of the book is formed by how our script developed, too many pages highlighting improvements of other book users, how to address an envelope etc.

All in all I think the amount of actual info you need to improve handwriting is too small for the price of the book. For people interested in this subject, go to [...] and find lots of excercises to learn write in Italic. Definitely more than you will get via this book, and its free!

I bought this workbook among many others (including elementary grade penmanship workbooks) in search of something to help my 15 year old survive rejection with no credit on high school papers due to illegible handwriting. Every night he agreed to work for 20 mins as part of the teacher's agreement to receive typed work for credit in the meantime. The course appears to be written for adults, is interesting enough for that, and is do-able by a high schooler. It also contains lots of snippets of the history of handwriting through the ages and I find it is helping him tremendously focus on writing while providing interesting discussions. It is obviously prepared quite thoroughly and professionally. I'd give it an A+++.

This book really turned my handwriting around.

I've been plagued by poor handwriting all my life, and though I've practiced and drilled my cursive for years, nothing seemed to make it legible. I would *often* have to re-write short one-sentence notes on PostIts several times so that they could be read. Without word processing, I would be almost completely a verbal-communication-only person. But personally and professionally, my handwriting needs to be legible, so I went looking for a solution, and, in large part based on the reviews in Amazon, got this book.

When I got the book, I worked on it for a couple of hours and saw improvement so rapid and noticeable, I charged on through most of the drills in the book in six days. The constant improvement was so noticeable, I was highly motivated to push through. I am still practicing on speed, and some of the more uncommon changes between letters, but I am more, far more, than satisfied with the result. And, yes, people can read my writing.

Here are what I think are some of the key points I found helpful --

1. The authors point out that the style of writing most of us learned in grade school (with lots of loops, with a capital "Q" that looks like a "2" etc.) was NOT designed for handwriting -- it was designed for engraving. The style of writing taught in this book removes the excess loops and squiggles and reduces the strokes to a near minimum. Note, however, that the style being taught is not new--it has been used for centuries (both my parents used it in their many handwritten letters).

2. In some cases, where transitions between letters might be difficult (like following a "w" with an "e") the book often give different ways to do it. For me, the worst of the worst of my problems in writing was how to get from an "r" to another letter without making the "r" look like something else. Among the solutions the authors offer to this particular problem was this (which I chose): lift your pen off after the "r" and start the next letter. How simple! And it works! (with respect to my harried writing teachers of long ago, I don't recall that this was ever given as an option, or that there were options).

3. The book is meant to be written in (the authors tell you so) and there are pages of drills, including many paragraphs of sample to practice mimicing as you practice. There are also specially lined pages for use in practice that the authors give permission to copy for your practicing, which helped, as the needs of my drilling went well beyond the available pages in the book.

4. There was a paragraph written in the style at the beginning of the book, and I could see how simple, readable, and beautiful it was. I could see immediately that it was an attainable goal.

Grand job, Ms. Getty and Ms. Dubay.

I originally bought this to help my sons with their poor handwriting. I decided to try the lessons myself so I could better teach it to my boys. I have enjoyed it and greatly improved the legibility of the progress notes I write in the hospital charts everyday. The entire book is handwritten, which provides extensive examples.

The margins are also filled with notes on the history of the development of our alphabet going back five thousand years. The authors point out several good reasons why the loopy style of handwriting taught in today's schools is more awkward than the cursive italic style taught in the book. I have notice that many of the doctors who trained in India use this cursive italic style and their hospital notes are more readable and attractive.

I highly recommend the book to adults who want to improve their handwriting. I also recommend the books to parents who wish to teach their children better handwriting. I would not buy the book and just hand it to anyone under the age of 13 and say, "here, read this." It would be much better to do as we were told in medical school: see one, do one, teach one.

I really liked how this book is organized. You don't need to read it all to significantly improve your handwriting. For me one third of it was completely enough, I've managed to change my handwriting completely in one or two weeks with the aid of this book. In fact I write in Russian much more than in English, and "Write now" helped me a lot to develop cyrillic letters also. Great book, can be used by anybody, practical and interesting! If you are about to improve the way you write you have to get it!

I just received my "Write Now" workbooks. I ordered two - one each for my twin 8 year old boys. Their handwriting is deplorable. The books are great but not for young children, IMO. However, I do intend to use one for myself. My handwriting is deplorable and I can certainly see it helping me. It's a great product but just not what I expected (buyer error).

I had a student who wanted to improve her handwriting, and after some hunting I settled on this. When I received it, I was really impressed. The book is clear and well organized. Anyone could improve their handwriting with this book. I am often complimented on my handwriting, but I have often been dissatisfied with it. Just looking over the instructions in this book helped me quite a bit. I am planning to pick up another copy to keep.

This book is excellent. It re-teaches adults how to write legibly, just the way our teachers did when we were children. Numerous excercises and frequent practice will have your handwriting fixed in no-time!