Handwriting Without Tears Kindergarten Hands-On Materials

The Handwriting Without Tears Kindergarten program incorporates hands-on activities and multisensory teaching strategies that build good handwriting habits early.
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Product Description
Handwriting remains the primary way that elementary students communicate their thoughts and produce work in the classroom. Research shows that elementary students spend 40 percent of their day on handwritten activities. Students who receive handwriting instruction are better, more creative writers and have higher grades in all subjects - even math.

Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) utilizes a two-lined approach to handwriting, providing a simple but clearly successful style. This style is developmentally based, works for children of all abilities, is easy to teach and is multi-sensory. Children with visual, perceptual, fine motor and other processing problems learn to write neatly and legibly. HWT includes easy-to-learn steps for readiness, printing and cursive with both teacher and student manuals, and is also "lefty" friendly.

HWT kindergarten program incorporates hands-on activities and multisensory teaching strategies that build good handwriting habits early. Your teaching will engage students, with music, movement, fine motor activities, and child friendly language.

Features:
  • Lessons align with the Common Core State Standards (see Documnets tab for more information)
  • Technology links for lesson extensions and support
  • Home links to facilitate school-to-home connection
  • Video links to demonstrate lessons and activities
  • Curriculum connections
  • More to Learn to extend each lesson
  • Extended teaching guidelines to incorporate handwriting all year
  • ELL and support strategies provide suggestions for modifying or reinforcing a lesson

Capital Letters Wood Pieces
Pre-writing instruction and practice made easy (size, shape, and position words and concepts). Use with Capital Letter Cards to teach letter building. Three-dimensional shapes. Includes 26 pieces: 8 big lines, 6 big curves, 6 little lines, and 6 little curves.

Capital Letter Cards for Wood Pieces
Ideal for children who are just starting to learn to build capital letters. The front of each card shows a capital letter formed with wood pieces and is used to teach the stroke sequence for forming the letter The back has four beginning activities to teach letter awareness and same/different discrimination. Set includes 26 double sided, 8.5" x 11" laminated cards.

Mat for Wood Pieces
After mastering guided information on the Letter Cards, children progress to building letters on the 8" x 11" blue mat. The smiley face icon on the top left corner reminds them where to start.

Slate Chalkboard
The 4" x 6" Slate Chalkboard is used to teach and remediate capitals and numbers. The smiley face icon at the corner reinforces top-to-bottom, left-to-right directionality. Children write capitals and numbers in a consistent size. The frame prevents and eliminates reversals.

Blackboard with Double Lines
Use 10" x 17" board to teach students to make and place all letters on double lines in both printing and cursive. Teach name in print and cursive, letter placement on double lines, and cursive connections. To make your board last longer, use soft white chalk (avoid colored chalk), wipe the board clean with a soft tissue (paper towels are too abrasive), don’t use cleaners other than clear water. Make sure the board is completely dry before beginning a new exercise.

Color Name Plates
Give children practice writing their name. These name plates are a great visual aid to help teach children how to write their names. Perfect for desks, lockers, or cubbies. Double lines extend across the name space to provide an easy way for kids to learn the correct start, placement, and proportion of letters. A border features colorful mini alphabet cards that include an illustration that matches the beginning sound. Set of 30 card stock plates (11” x 3.5").

Capital and Number Practice Strips
Help children write their capitals and numbers with correct placement and proportion. Includes 100 strips (17" x 2.5") with a smiley face icon to orient the child.

Print Alphabet Desk Strips
Place these adhesive strips on student desks as a visual cue for letter formation. One sheet of 4 desk strips. Each strip is 10.5” x 2”.

Double Line Sentence Strips
Model sentences and words using double lines. Great for bulletin boards and word walls. Each set contains 100 strips (24" x 3").

Color Print Number Wall Cards
Eye-catching, illustrated cards promote correct formations. Includes 36 color letter and number cards. Cards are 8.5" x 11". (Same illustrations as Print Letter and Number Poster)

Print Letter and Number Poster
Eye catching illustrations on 34” x 24” poster promote correct formations. Hang in classroom to provide an up close letter/number model. (Same illustrations as Color Print and Number Wall Cards)

Flip Crayons
Created specifically for little hands. These unique crayons promote proper grip, eye/hand coordination, and fine motor skills through the flip of the crayon. 2 colors and 2 points per crayon - 10 colors in all. Plastic, side-locking case with 206 (2.4") crayons.

Gray Block Paper
This 8.5" x 11" paper helps children learn correct placement of capital letters and numbers. Four types of pages are included: Starting Corner Dot (dots in the "starting corner"), Center Starting Dot, Alphabet/Number Review, and blank Gray Blocks. Includes 26 pages of each style. Glue-binding for easy removal.

Big Sheet Draw and Write Paper
The 11" x 17" sheets are perfect for writing and drawing. Use for full length sentences or to build a 8.5" x 11" journal by folding pages in half. Includes 100 double sided sheets.

Double Line Chart Tablet
Designed for use with a classroom easel. The paper measures 24" x 32". Each tablet has 30 sheets. Set of 2 tablets.

Rock, Rap, Tap & Learn Audio CD
Features songs to help develop coordination and rhythm, developing self-esteem and body awareness through upbeat and "rocking" songs. Tracks will help students develop pencil grip and writing posture, as well as letter and number formations. 25 songs and Lyrics booklet included.

Specifications
Assembly Required No
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Product Use
Product Use/Directions Students using Handwriting Without Tears have high end-of-year scores on foundation printing and cursive skills, making them well prepared for the demands to produce written work in today’s classrooms.

HWT program follows research that states children learn more effectively by actively doing, and by using the different senses. The unique physical approach addresses posture, grip, and paper positioning.

It's a fact:
  • Research shows that handwriting is a foundational skill that can influence student’s reading, writing, language use, and critical thinking (Saperstein Associates 2012).
  • When children practice printing by hand, their neural activity is far more enhanced and “adult-like” (Bounds 2010).
  • Research states that learning how to write by hand is a necessary motor exercise (Saperstein Associates 2012; James and Gauthier 2006; James 2012; Berninger 2012).
  • Children consistently do better writing with a pen. They write more and they write faster (Berninger 2009).
Documents
Did You Know
Did You Know Why the Program Works

The Handwriting Without Tears® curriculum draws from years of innovation and research to provide developmentally appropriate, multisensory tools and strategies for your classroom. The program follows research that demonstrates children learn more effectively by actively doing, with materials that address all styles of learning.

Teaching Strategies
Unique strategies that appeal to all. We teach actively and explicitly in a developmental sequence. Our program uses multisensory teaching to incorporate all the senses in a fun and engaging way, ensuring that all children learn regardless of learning style or background.

Developmental Sequence
We teach the easiest skills first, then build on prior knowledge. Our teaching sequence takes advantage of child development and brain research to promote effective learning and good habits.

Developmental Order
Teaching letters in a developmental order helps children master skills and boosts confidence. We teach capitals first, and then lowercase letters. All letters are taught in small groups of similar formation. Children master the easier letter groups, and then move to the more difficult letters groups.

Multisensory Teaching
We help children develop their writing skills through explicit, multisensory, play based instruction. Children move, touch, feel, and manipulate real objects as they learn the habits and skills essential for writing. We use music to speak to children and promote movement and memory. Other multisensory lessons in the teachers’ guides use Voices, Letter Stories, Door Tracing, Air Writing, and Mystery Letter Games to teach letter formation and placement on lines.

Learn & Check
In all of the workbooks, we teach children to check their letter, word, and sentence skills after new lessons. Students check their letters for correct start, steps, and bumping the lines. Words are checked for correct size, placement, and closeness. Sentences are checked for correct capitalization, word spacing, and punctuation.

Review & Mastery
In the cursive program, mastery of concepts is reinforced with three levels of Review & Mastery activities throughout student workbooks. The sections follow a group of letters and focus on reinforcing the formation of all previously taught letters.

Child Friendly, Simple Language
Consistent, child friendly language evolved in response to complicated letter formation terminology in other programs. When teaching letter formation, we eliminate language that assumes that children understand left/right orientation, clockwise/counter-clockwise, or forward/backward circles. We make it easy by using fewer, carefully selected words that children know or understand. The workbooks are accessible and friendly, yet also promote excellence. We want children to practice correctly, therefore our workbook pages promote efficient, effective practice for each letter.

Large Step-by-Step Models
It is much easier for children to understand how to form letters if you show them how. The workbooks contain large step-by-step images that show students how to make each part of every letter.

Black & White, Simple, Clean Design & Illustrations
The black and white pages in our workbooks are clean and clear. We deliberately avoid visually confusing backgrounds, colored graphics, crowded pages, and multicolored lines. The simple workbook pages are appealing and invite children to color and draw once they have finished the lesson.

The illustrations promote left-to-right directionality. This is a unique feature of our workbooks. The illustrations go left to right across the page to encourage correct visual tracking and writing direction.

Lefty Friendly
The workbooks are lefty friendly. Teaching pages provide models on the left and right so that left-handed children can easily see the model they are copying. Lefties never have to lift their hands or place them in an awkward position to see a model. Children always make their best letter directly beside a model. This design encourages excellent letter practice for both left- and right-handed children.

Warnings
Choking Hazard No
Sterile No

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