Handwriting Without Tears: A Comprehensive Review for Homeschooling Families
Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) is a comprehensive handwriting curriculum designed to make learning to write easy and engaging for children. Created by occupational therapist Jan Olsen, the program focuses on simple, developmentally appropriate strategies to teach both print and cursive handwriting. Handwriting Without Tears uses a unique approach that emphasizes correct letter formation, spacing, and pencil grip while minimizing frustration.
Introduction
Teaching handwriting to children sets them up for success in learning letters, learning to read, writing down ideas, and so much more. Teaching handwriting fundamentals is the beginning of so many kinds of learning for children, and is an important skill we can work on as they grow. This article provides an in-depth review of the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum, covering its various components, benefits, and practical tips for implementation in a homeschool setting.
What is Handwriting Without Tears?
Handwriting Without Tears is a tried and true, effective program designed to make handwriting easy to teach and easy to learn, in just 15 minutes per day. It is a multi-sensory curriculum that turns a drab concept into something fresh and fun and hands-on. Handwriting Without Tears teaches a simplified, easy-to-learn letter style. The method reduces unnecessary strokes to help children write efficiently and legibly. The program progresses from pre-writing skills in early childhood to fluent cursive writing in later grades.
Benefits of Teaching Handwriting
Did you know that the benefits of teaching handwriting go far beyond the ability to write legibly? Teaching handwriting to children gives them an opportunity to practice their fine motor skills such as hand and finger strength, hand control, hand-eye coordination, pencil grip, and more. Research shows there is a correlation between children who have better handwriting skills and score higher on literacy tests. Children who are adept at handwriting are able to put ideas into print with more ease than children with poor handwriting. Older children can also benefit from the practice of learning how to write in cursive. Cursive writing relies on strong dexterity and motor skills, and the practice of writing in cursive helps improve memory and reading comprehension because it engages different areas of the brain than typing or print writing.
Curriculum Elements
Handwriting Without Tears is a handwriting curriculum that is part of the Learning Without Tears group of resources. It’s intended for use in a school setting, but it’s become popular in the homeschool community. The program is broken down by generalized grade level, starting with pre-k letter formation to cursive handwriting.
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Pre-K Level: My First School Book
My First School Book, the preschool level workbook, teaches pencil grip, uppercase letter formation, number formation, colors, and shapes. There’s also a nod to the first sound of each letter, but I didn’t feel that was a major part of the workbook and feel strongly that letter sounds should be taught separately. But most of the book is dedicated to uppercase letter formation (lowercase letters are taught in the kindergarten level). Letter formation is taught in developmental, rather than alphabetical, order.
It’s important to know that the workbook is just one part of this curriculum. Handwriting Without Tears is intended to be a multisensory curriculum. There are a number of additional products you can purchase to allow the student to have hands-on activities to learn letter and number and letter formation, as well as CDs with learning songs. A suggested lesson plan and activities are included in the Readiness & Writing Pre-K Teacher’s Guide.
Early Elementary Handwriting
Once kids have a grasp of proper letter development, it’s easy to keep to just keep using the next book in the series. The changes for the elementary leveled books are: the print size, the line size, the number of words per page, the vocabulary used, and the amount of writing the child is expected to do.
Mid to Late Elementary Handwriting
Around 2nd grade, the curriculum transitions to cursive. However, it is beneficial to go back to print practice if a child's handwriting starts to get sloppy as writing demands increase. Handwriting practice is not a punishment, it is a legitimate life skill!
Key Components and Materials
Handwriting Without Tears is intended to be a multisensory curriculum. There are a number of additional products you can purchase to allow the student to have hands-on activities to learn letter and number and letter formation, as well as CDs with learning songs.
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Essential Materials
- Student Workbook: The core of the program, providing structured lessons and practice pages.
- Teacher's Guide: Offers guidance, lesson plans, and tips for effective instruction.
Recommended Multi-Sensory Tools
*Wood Pieces Set for Capital Letters: Children can use wooden pieces to build letters.*Capital Letter Cards for Wood Pieces*Mat for Wood Pieces*Mat Man Hands*Stamp and See Screen*Flip Crayons*Slate Chalkboard*Get Set for School Sing Along CD*Roll-a-Dough Letters and Numbers Set*Little Chalk Bits*Little Sponge Cubes*My Book activity book*Magic C Bunny Puppet
The Teacher's Guide
The Teacher's Guide shares the heart of the program. The Teacher's Guide is helpful because they teach the parent how to give explicit instruction.
Level Selection
It can be confusing to figure out which workbook is for which grade. This is because the books are color coded instead of having a grade level written on the cover. This curriculum is written according to suggested grade levels, but that grade level isn't reported on the cover. Rather each level has a color and a title.
Printing Workbooks
- My First School Book - LIGHT GREEN book for Preschool
- Kick Start Kindergarten - PURPLE book for Transitional Kindergarten
- Letters and Numbers for Me - ORANGE book for Kindergarten
- My Printing Book - YELLOW book for 1st grade
- Printing Power - GREEN book for 2nd grade
- Can-Do Print - YELLOW book for 5th grade with language arts activities
Cursive Workbooks
- Cursive Kickoff - LIGHT (BRIGHT) BLUE for 2nd grade
- Cursive Handwriting - ORANGE for 3rd grade
- Cursive Success - DARK BLUE for 4th grade
- Can-Do Cursive - GREEN for 5th grade with language arts activities
Teaching Methodology
Handwriting Without Tears embodies a developmental teaching approach by teaching capitals first, and then proceeds to help the child master lowercase letters, lowercase cursive letters, and finally capital cursive letters. Once the handwriting mechanics are mastered, children can focus on content and meaning-- in all subjects. Structured handwriting lessons lead to improved writing performance, academic success, and overall student self-esteem.
Multi-Sensory Approach
Handwriting Without Tears truly is a multi-sensory curriculum, which means that you should have some success with this program no matter your student’s preferred learning methods as long as you focus time and energy on the learning methods that they prefer.
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Developmental Progression
With this curriculum, students are gently taught how to form letters on practice pages that build upon letter formation skills. The letters are started with minimal movement and build upon those hand motions.
Simplified Letter Formation
Handwriting Without Tears teaches a simplified, easy-to-learn letter style. The method reduces unnecessary strokes to help children write efficiently and legibly.
Cursive Instruction
The Handwriting Without Tear’s cursive instruction is written in a super simple sequence that makes learning cursive a breeze! The connections are introduced in a very thoughtful manner. Moreover, the lessons are taught in a way that builds cursive gradually, moving from easy to more challenging. Like print, letters are started with minimal movement (c) and build upon those hand motions. This program also uses a less formal form of cursive, not emphasizing extra loops. Cursive letter connections are taught right away rather than waiting until the entire alphabet has been covered.
Implementing Handwriting Without Tears in Your Homeschool
Active teaching time usually takes less than five minutes, although it always took longer when we had fun songs from the CD on the plan for the day. If the student has a coloring activity in the workbook, they usually take a few minutes longer. Coloring is a key aspect of the curriculum because it gives the student an opportunity to practice the proper pencil grip and build up hand muscle strength. Until the student habitually uses the correct grip, you’ll need to monitor and correct. In these early stages, your child’s hand will tire quickly. But we had great results with even just a few minutes with this curriculum a day on a consistent basis.
Tips for Success
- Store all of the pieces of the program together, maybe in a bag or bin, so that it’s easy to grab what you need when you need it.
- Don’t skip the coloring pages at the beginning of the workbook. They’re important for the development of your student’s fine motor skills. You may want to spend multiple days on one coloring page if your student’s hand grows tired.
- Start with short, manageable lessons. I suggest starting with only 5-10 minutes per lesson to ensure no frustration or tears (so to speak) when it's time to pull out the printing book. You need to build their hand strength first! We certainly didn't start with 2 pages in our daily lesson plans!
- Be consistent. Even a few minutes of practice each day can yield significant improvements over time.
- Monitor pencil grip and letter formation. Until the student habitually uses the correct grip, you’ll need to monitor and correct.
- Make it fun! Incorporate the multi-sensory tools and activities to keep your child engaged and motivated.
Addressing Common Concerns
Do I really need all those pieces? Can I get just the workbook?
You can try using just the workbook if your student’s preferred learning methods are Written Word, Spoken Word, or Visual since there are pictures at the top of each letter and number page showing the steps in forming the letters/numbers. But if you have a student that learns better with Interactive or Physical learning methods, I would recommend purchasing the teacher’s manual and some of the hands-on pieces.
The Teacher's Guide is "busy."
There's a lot of information on each page-- too much so, that it can be seen as quite a distraction.
It isn't necessarily an "Open and Go" Curriculum until you get used to the format.
It is an easy curriculum to implement! Unlike some other things we are doing right now, asking him to complete his workbook lesson resulted in no drama and no tears!
Alternatives to Handwriting Without Tears
*Dash Into Learning: Has a handwriting program that looks very cutesy.*Brave Writer Darts for grammar, copywork, and dictation.
Testimonials and Success Stories
Homeschooling families have reported significant improvements in their children's handwriting skills and overall confidence after using Handwriting Without Tears. The program's multi-sensory approach and structured lessons make it an effective and enjoyable learning experience for both students and teachers.
Integrating with Other Language Arts Resources
Handwriting Without Tears can easily be integrated alongside other language arts programs you may be using because it takes less than 10-15 minutes a day.
Copywork
Charlotte Mason recommended the practice of copywork as an opportunity to practice handwriting.
Book Studies
Dive deep into living literature in your homeschool with book studies from Treehouse Schoolhouse. These studies study the story in detail, and then connect the story to themes in science, nature, geography, history, and language arts for further learning.
Wonder of Nature Alphabet Collection
The Wonder of Nature Alphabet Collection - including Print Cards, Cursive Cards, and Alphabet Sheets - were designed to offer young children a multi-sensory invitation to recognizing letters. The watercolor illustrations coordinate with each letter of the alphabet to teach early phonetic awareness by introducing them to beginning letter sounds. The Wonder of Nature Alphabet Sheets were designed to offer young children a multi-sensory invitation to recognizing, forming, and writing letters. Slide these sheets into a restaurant menu cover or into dry-erase pouches so that your child can practice them again and again.
Keyboarding Without Tears
If you’re familiar with Handwriting Without Tears, you will also be excited to use Keyboarding Without Tears. The typing exercises are simple and easy to follow. And the exercises are actually fun and require thinking beyond just learning how to type by integrating other subjects.
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