Does your hand ache when you write?
Packed with fun and simple ideas to help kids feel good about writing, this handwriting book with a difference helps children embed the strength and skills they need to get the most out of their written work, at home and school!
From different kinds of cushions, hand warm-ups, and cool eye scan exercises, and pencil grips to yoga balls in cardboard boxes, personalized activity binders, playdough, lego, and Velcro on pencils, this book is filled with fun stuff to help kids focus, get stronger, and be in control of their writing. The strategies in the book are accompanied by cartoon-style illustrations, and the author includes useful tips for parents and teachers as well as handy visual charts, a quiz to identify areas of most difficulty, and checklists for children to track their own progress.
Armed with the strategies and exercises in this book, kids will be well on their way to writing with greater ease, and the positive self-esteem that goes along with that. Suitable for children with writing difficulties aged approximately 7 to 12.
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I think this book has potential to be a great resource for kids who have difficulty with writing for a variety of reasons. But please note this is not a book that you can just throw at kids and expect them to figure it all out on their own. Teacher and parents should review it first and then go through it with the child. Also, follow any directions and support from your occupational therapist. There are a lot of words for a child to sort through on his own. But then that child should be empowered to make his own decisions about which tips and tricks work best for him.
I love the exercises presented in this book and remember using several of them when I was teaching, as well as a lot of the suggested tools. I like that it does empower the child to express how each activity makes her feel and which ones work best for her.
A couple of things bothered me a little bit. There are pre-printed writing lines where the child is supposed to copy a particular phrase or practice. Those lines are obviously hand-drawn, so they are wobbly and not the same size. I would rather those lines be standard and straight. But all of the charts and bookmarks, etc,. are all clearly printed and look neat and tidy, which makes them easy to read. That's another reason that I do not understand why the handwriting lines are all hand-drawn. And then the pencil emojis at the end of certain sections are a fun idea, but I find it very difficult to distinguish between the three facial expressions on the pencils. The mouths are so small that you can barely make them out and the eyes do not change too much.
The copy that I reviewed was a digital copy. I hope that the pages that have the bookmarks and things on them that are supposed to be cut out end up being pages that are blank on the other side. Otherwise, you're losing some important information! Or I hope that the book ends up in a format that allows for very easy photocopying.
So overall, I do see a lot of benefit to this book and a few tweaks would make it a little more appealing. Teachers and parents can learn a lot from it and its suggestions for activities, which could easily be implemented throughout the environment for all kids. And then the kids can figure out which techniques best help them in their own situations. They even help kids who are not showing those stronger signs of needing extra help when writing. I had many of these as a part of my general classroom offerings for all children and then encourage certain children toward certain techniques. Otherwise, they were able to figure out what best suited each of them.
Thank you to the publisher for fulfilling my review request via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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