Handwriting Without Tears: Learn to Write the Alphabet With Me!

Let’s learn how to write the alphabet with Handwriting Without Tears curriculum.  You want your child to write with speed and neatness while thinking about the content of their work.  The secret to achieving speed and legibility is following these simple strategies from Handwriting Without Tears curriculum:
1. Memory: Name letters and numbers quickly from a random list.
2. Orientation: Print all letters and numbers without reversals.
3. Placement: Follow lines and place letters and numbers correctly on the baseline.
4. Size: Make letters a consistent size.
5. Start: Start all letters and numbers at the top (except d and e). 
6. Sequence: Make the letter parts in the correct order and direction. 
7. Control: Print the letter parts neatly (no gaps, overlaps, or extra tracings), and keep curved parts curved, straight parts straight, and pointed parts pointed, etc.
8. Spacing: Keep letters in words close, while leaving spaces between words in sentences.

Week 1: F and E
Week 2: D and P
Week 3: B and R
Week 4: N and M
Week 5: H and K
Week 6: L and U
Week 7: V and W
Week 8: X and Y
Week 9: Z and C
Week 10: O and Q
Week 11: G and S
Week 12: A and I
Week 13: T and J
Week 14: c and o
Week 15: s and v
Week 16: w and t
Week 17: a and d
Week 18: g and u
Week 19: i and e
Week 20: l and k
Week 21: y and j
Week 22: p and r
Week 23: n and m
Week 24: h and b
Week 25: f and q
Week 26: x and z


Why learn them in this order rather than in alphabetical order?  The letters are taught in this order because they are grouped by similarities.
*Frog Jump Capitals (F, E, D, P, B, R, N, M): These letters all start in the top left corner with a big line on the left, and a frog jump back up to the top left corner. When the first line is on the left, the next part is on the right side. This prevents reversals, while teaching good stroke habits.
*Starting Corner Capitals (H, K, L, U, V, W, X, Y, Z): These letters all start on the left and use the left-to-right formation habit. Printing follows the same order as reading (top-to-bottom and left-to-right).
*Center Starters (C, O, Q, G, S, A, I, T, J): These letters start at the center of the top and the letters C, O, Q, and G start with the Magic C stroke. Learners will form good habits with C, O, S, T, and J that will make learning c, o, s, t, and j much easier! There will be no problems with stroke direction or reversals.
*Same as Capitals (c, o, s, v, w, t): The first 5 letters are exactly like their capitals, just smaller. Lowercase t is made like T, it’s just crossed lower.
*Magic C Lowercase (a, d, g): These high frequency letters begin with the familiar Magic C stroke.
*More Vowels (u, i, e): Here are the rest of the vowels.  The focus will be on careful placement and size.
*Transition Group (l, k, y, j): These letters are familiar from capitals. The focus will also be on careful placement and size.
*Diver Letters (p, r, n, m, h, b): These letters start with the same pattern: dive down, come up, swim over!  We avoid b and d confusion by separating the letters and teaching them in different groups.
*Final Group (f, q, x, z): The letter f has a tricky start. Letter q is taught here to avoid confusion with the letter g.  Letters x and z are familiar, but infrequently used.

Why learn capital letters before lowercase letters? Children who learn capitals first, also learn 3 things: 1. Start the letters at the top.  2. Use the correct stroke sequence to form letters.  3. Orient letters and numbers correctly - no reversals!  Think about it, c, o, s, v, w, x, y, and z are the same as their capitals; j, k, t, and u are also similar to their capital partners.  After learning the proper strokes to write capitals, learners will be prepared to write nearly half of the lowercase alphabet.

Capital letters are easy:
*All start at the top.
*All are the same height (they touch the top line and the bottom line but don’t go above or below either line).
*All occupy the same vertical space.
*All are easy to recognize and identify (compare A, B, D, G, P, Q with their lowercase letters a, b, d, g, p, q).
*Capitals are big, bold, and familiar.

Lowercase letters are more difficult:
*Lowercase letters start in four different places, for example, a, b, e, and f.
*Lowercase letters are not the same size. Fourteen letters are half the size of capitals, twelve are the same size as capitals.
*Lowercase letters occupy three different vertical positions: small, tall, descending.
*Lowercase letters are more difficult to recognize because of subtle differences, for example, a, b, d, g, p, q are all similar and easy to confuse.

Why use Handwriting Without Tears as opposed to other programs? These lessons are multi sensory:
*Visual - Step-by-step illustrations of letter formations give clear visual direction. Clean, uncluttered black and white pages are presented in a visually simple format.  Illustrations in workbooks face left-to-right, promoting left-to-right directionality.
*Tactile - Wet-dry-try on a blackboard gives children touch and repetition without boredom. Step-by-step workbook models are big enough for finger tracing. The frame of the chalkboard helps learners make lines, and keep letters and numbers well proportioned.
*Auditory - Consistent, child-friendly language helps children learn and remember easily.  Music and different voices promote memorable and entertaining letter instruction. Unique mystery letters prevent children from using bad habits by delaying the auditory letter cue.
*Kinesthetic - Music and movement teach letter formation. Imaginary writing teaches using large arm movements and visual cues.

Handwriting Without Tears teaches the capital letters using blocks (or rectangles) on worksheets, which I will demonstrate first by using the pieces from the PDF (or the wood pieces if you choose to buy them) to build the letters while your child follows along. 

Learners will also participate in this fun activity that gets their attention while helping learning the concept. This uses multiple senses to help with retention of letter size and placement. Students will develop a sense for how letters fit relative to one another, a a long them to write letters the correct size and put them in the correct vertical place. We will use this each day.

Handwriting Without Tears includes step-by-step illustrated directions, making it much easier for children to understand how to form letters as opposed to a bunch of tiny arrows pointing the way around the letter.  Handwriting Without Tears also uses child-friendly consistent terminology.  They don’t assume that children fully understand left/right orientation, clockwise/counterclockwise, or forward/backward.  An example of Handwriting Without Tears‘ terminology to make the letter d, “Magic c, up like a helicopter, up higher, back down, bump.” An example of other programs to make the letter d, “Touch below the midline, circle back (left all the way around). Push up to the headline. Pull down straight to the baseline.”

Why use vertical print instead of slanted print (such as D’Nealian)?  Vertical print only uses 4 simple shapes (horizontal lines, vertical lines, diagonal lines, and circles/curves), while slanted print uses 12 different strokes.  Vertical print is simple and straight, while slanted print has tails or fancy endings which leads to more reversals.  There is no advantage to using slanted style for printing. Despite claims to the contrary, slanted print does not make the transition to cursive easier. 

Integrating handwriting and reading: Encoding requires hearing spoken language and translating sounds into letter symbols. Handwriting also requires cognitive, motor, and visual recall skills. Imitating and copying help cement letter formation habits. The Handwriting Without Tears letter teaching order supports the development of these skills because letters are taught in groups based on similarity of formation. After learners master the easier letters, they are ready to move on to letters that are more difficult to form.

What does a typical class look like?  We will start with introductions if there are new learners.  Next, we will do an ice breaker such as “Teacher Says” (Simon Says).  We will sing “Where Do You Start Your Letters?” and/or a song that has to do with the letter of the day, for example, “Frog Jump Letters.”  We will use wood pieces to build the letters and finger trace as we build the letters.  Then we will use the Wet-Dry-Try Activity using a chalkboard, chalk, and a little sponge.  Learners will be reminded of proper paper placement and pencil grip.   We will use our wood pieces to build our letters, practice tracing with our fingers, and then we will begin the worksheet for that day.  We will start the worksheet that will be sent out on Sundays.  If we have extra time we will  make mat man to practice identifying wood pieces, basic strokes written on chalkboard (or whiteboard), Mystery Letters game, etc. to reinforce important skills in a fun way.