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Handwriting Resources

The traditional handwriting method most of us learned in school is used by A Beka, Concerned Communications (A Reason for Handwriting), School of Tomorrow, Christian Liberty Press, and Alpha Omega, while Bob Jones University Press and Rod and Staff offer the slant print method. Rod and Staff prefaces the learning of slant printing with the traditional ball and stick, resulting in a "two-transition" handwriting curriculum—ball and stick to slant print to cursive. A Beka Book offers the option of either manuscript printing or cursive for kindergarten.

Traditional Method / Ball and Stick

Slant Print or Simplified Cursive
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Handwriting without Tears

Handwriting Without Tears teaches handwriting for children Pre-K through about 5th grade. Some distinctives of this program are:

- it teaches upper case letters before lower case.
- it teaches groups of letters together that have similar strokes for their formation or the same starting points for their formation.
- letters are not slanted for either printing or cursive.
- multi-sensory learning methods are used for instruction

HWT's style is simpler than traditional cursive, but it differs from the most of the other "simplified cursive" forms in that there is no slant and some of the letters (e.g., "e", "f", and "k") change form from printing to cursive.
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