Disclosure: Complimentary Product Received
“Happy International Scribble Day! I recently had a lot of scribbling going on in my house – illegible, but reminiscent of an art form most of us learned as children – Cursive. And I thought today would be the perfect day to show you what we did with those “scribbles” using one of the top education resources on the market.” – Christal @Mamasweetbaby
My little Lefty is ready to try his hand at cursive. As if life wasn’t hard enough with a Gifted Learner, Cash has suddenly decided that his print isn’t “fun enough” and has been bugging me to try Cursive Handwriting for months now. When your kid is technically a first grader who just learned to print his words legibly what do you do? You turn to the experts on Handwriting at Learning Without Tears for help (@lwtears).
Learning without Tears gives students a solid foundation in printing starting in Preschool for Public, Private, and Homeschool Students. Trusted experts since 1977, the program was bred out of necessity by Occupational Therapist, Jan Olsen. Covering School Readiness, Handwriting, and Keyboarding, Learning Without Tears, addressees these skills with children in grades Pre-K through 5 worldwide. We aren’t strangers to the program – Cash started from the very beginning with worksheets in Pre-K and then the Yellow and Orange books in Kindergarten and this year. My requirements for a writing program for him were very specific – I needed resources to support a left-handed student, in both English and Spanish, with a Hands on component for my Kinesthetic Learner, while providing a large amount of parent support (because I didn’t know the first thing about teaching handwriting!). Learning Without tears fit that perfectly.
Now, getting back to Cursive. We were doing just fine printing. Cash picked up his letter formations using the Wooden Letters and Mat Man, and he was working on his handwriting in both English and Spanish simultaneously. Then one day, he starts trying to write in “curly letters” and I could no longer read his handwriting. Anyone will tell you, that plenty of people have sloppy handwriting, but as his educational instructor it’s important to me to be able to effectively read his conveyed thoughts. Especially at this formative stage as a writer. Sure, I could have insisted he print but as person who believes in child-led learning, I was going to have to start cursive or else.
Learning Without Tears sent me their Blue books for Grade 4. We got the Teacher’s Guide (NEEDED), and the Cursive Success Student Books in both English and in Spanish. Just so you know, Cursive actually starts with 2nd grade in Handwriting Without Tears and continues through 5th grade and I wasn’t sure Cash would be able to handle the higher grade books. I was wrong. First, the Teacher’s Guide is very thorough and parent friendly. There is also an entire introductory video course FOR THE INSTRUCTOR to help with the methodology in teaching Cursive. Second, the Student Workbooks are written very well and are a gentle guide to Cursive as if the 4th grade book is the child’s first introduction to the subject. There are plenty of fun illustrations, visual concepts that are used for letter formation that were used with the student since Pre-K, and age appropriate copy work. You’ll also find tips throughout the book just for left-handed students. Best of all Cash loved the exercises that encouraged him to “translate” a word from print to cursive which let me know he hadn’t abandoned print entirely.
Need to work on Handwriting on the go or have a kid that enjoys learning off the page? Handwriting Without Tears offers an awesome virtual companion with their Digital Student App! They can access a number of activities to watch helpful videos and practice letter formation using Wet Dry Try. Just login using your LWT Teacher Account to access your class pin and access the student app site from the address listed at the front of their workbook. For the Teacher, you can view the guides, a lesson planner, Assignment Tracker, Digital tools, and a Worksheet Maker. When I wanted to use other Cursive resources, I only needed to open up that grade’s Digital book or custom Worksheets in English or Spanish.
Now, let’s talk about the Spanish book for Cursive Success, “Exito con Cursive”. It’s a great companion to the English book, and mirrors it very well for Bilingual Learners however the vocabulary chosen for the Spanish book is in relation to the letters that need to be formed for the lesson not the vocabulary itself. Countries and Names are also presented with the Spanish spellings. The Greek and Latin sections near the end of the books are in the Spanish as well. For a Spanish Language learner, everything is presented in Spanish, without any English in the book itself. Some days, we used both books, but on immersive days we used the Spanish book only.
From the very first day using the books, I saw a noticeable change in his cursive handwriting. Sure, Cursive is great for signatures and correspondence, but Learning Without Tears acknowledges that Cursive helps the child feel grownup, and speeds up note taking. Cash can put his thoughts to paper quicker than he ever has and I see that helping him become a more fluid, insightful writer. With the importance of Keyboarding on the rise more than ever, this “lost art” is still profoundly important to our students. Luckily, we have Learning Without Tears, Handwriting Without Tears Cursive Success to hold our hand and guide us along the way.
Thank You so Much Learning Without Tears for the opportunity to introduce Cash to Cursive Success! He loves the challenge of learning a new skill with a trusted favorite curriculum. Are you looking to start Cursive with your child or begin at the beginning with Printing? Check out the resources available from Learning Without Tears at www.lwtears.com.
@Mamasweetbaby 
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