A Reason for Handwriting

I spent some time reorganizing our resource shelf to re-discover (this is what happens when you have a lot stuff to work with) “A Reason for Handwriting”, published by The Concerned Group, Inc. When this was gifted to me last year, I thought nothing of it. I mean, how difficult could it be to teach the alphabet and penmanship?

Now that I am dictating to Rilla (and she is trying to spell and write her own words), I’m finding improvement is needed in her penmanship. There is mix of use between uppercase and lowercase letters. There are inconsistencies in the sizes of her lowercase letters. I found that she was not “drawing” the letters in the ”correct” fashion. I found myself explaining over and over in frustration.

Enter this curriculum… it ”renames” the top, middle, and bottom lines of the paper using a treehouse visual. They are now the roofline, ceiling, floor, and ground – where the tails of g’s p’s j’s, for instance, hang. It’s so clever and intuitive! The letters are grouped according to the styles: downstrokes, slant strokes, and forward curves. Each letter is matched with a large line drawing for a coloring activity.

There is one teacher Guidebook that covers all of the levels. The levels are named Kindergarten, Level A, Level B, Transition (to cursive) and Levels A-F. Eventually, short passages from scripture are introduced (with focus on one or more letters) for each lesson.

As our main curriculum is Classical Conversations, I’m finding A Reason for Handwriting to be a fun and thoughtful companion.