Handwriting Without Tears
Handwriting Without Tears
In our preschool class, we will have daily practice using a program called Handwriting Without Tears (HWT). This could be as simple as singing a song, using a chalk board, making "mat man", writing letters in the air, or actually using pencils/crayons and our workbooks! It is the only developmentally-based handwriting program on the market today. That means it pays attention, in a way that no other program does, to the developmental needs of people learning how to write.
Most of us don't think of these skills, but consider: good handwriting requires the ability regularly to distinguish certain shapes and to translate those distinct mental images into consistent physical motions in one's hand. It requires the ability to hold a writing instrument in a comfortable manner. It requires the writer to consistently follow certain well-defined, pre-prescribed motions...
In keeping with its developmental concerns, Handwriting Without Tears offers extremely basic exercises in figure-ground discrimination and top-to-bottom, left-to-right sequencing. When it comes to forming letters, it begins with all the capitals.
Why? Because, unlike, say, the lower-case p, q, b, and d, the capital letters are all very easy to distinguish. Kids don't mix them up. P, Q, B and D all look very different. Moreover, the capital letters are all constructed of only four distinct shapes, all four of which are relatively easy to write.
Handwriting Without Tears: Why It Works!
Why do we start with capital letters? Click HERE to find out more!