Product: Cursive First Step
Company: Peterson Directed Handwriting
Price: 19.95$US (There are a variety of packages and materials available so be sure to check out their website for more pricing information.)
Handwriting has always been a bit of a battle in our household. My son absolutely LOVES school but he HATES writing so it makes for some tense moments in out schoolhouse. He wanted to learn but didn’t want to have to write anything down and I, being somewhat paranoid that the Department of Education would knock on my door demanding to see my children’s work, would demand and plead that he write something, ANYTHING. Well, we’ve finally found a program that makes sense and we are no longer butting heads when it comes to writing. As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew I was able to choose a program from Peterson Directed Handwriting. Liam has expressed an interest in cursive writing so to avoid as much conflict as possible we decided to go that route for writing this year.
First of all, I was totally impressed that we got a real time lesson on how to use the program when we were given out products (and yes, YOU can have that option, too!) There a chat room available where you can schedule a meeting to get your question answered with real time demonstrations should you need them. There are also numerous online demonstrations and informational videos. This 20 minute video will give you are very good overview of the Peterson Method. The main idea of the program is that the student needs to commit the actions taken for writing to muscle memory and there is a whole procedure for going about doing so. Student begin by learning the four basic movements required for cursive writing-sharp tops, loop tops, round tops, roll tops as they recite the movements aloud. The goal is to finish the movement and saying the command at the same time creating rhythm and helping to commit the movement to muscle memory. As the students progress and become able to “write” at the same time as they recite they move from air writing to finger tracing and then writing on paper, progressively reducing the size of their writing as they become more proficient. You can view the cursive e-books for free here but will not be able to print them. It will, however, give you a good idea how the Peterson method works.
I would happily pay the 19.95$US for this writing program as it made writing seem fun for Liam and really broke everything down for me into a step by step process. I do find that I received the most benefit from the online training session (which you can purchase on their website should you need it) BUT a lot of the same material is provided for free in the 20 minute video that was mentioned above. In addition to cursive e-books for various levels, Peterson Directed Handwriting also has a print version and software that enables you to use the Peterson method directly on your computer using a digital writing tablet, allowing you to really go green! There’s a wealth of information on their website so I invite you to check it out and see for yourselves.
**Any products reviewed by me as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew have been given to me free of charge in order for me to provide you with an honest review of the product and/or how we used the product within our family. I do not receive any other form of compensation for the reviews posted on this blog.
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