handwriting

What’s App Wednesday: Touch and Write

May 23, 2012 by Vanessa Levin

touch and write app by fizzbrain

Thanks for joining me at What’s App Wednesday! This week we’ll be looking at Touch and Write by FizzBrain.

About the App
I absolutely love this app! Touch and Write provides practice writing letters, numbers, names, and words by providing 16 different messy options for writing such as pudding and shaving cream. What 4 or 5 year old doesn’t love to write in shaving cream? Basically this app takes a tried and true teaching practice and puts a fun and engaging spin on it that will allow your kids to practice writing with their favorite medium every single day. I would rank this app right up there with the Flannel Board app, they are both tons of fun!

Features

Created by real teachers
Based on best practices in teaching
16 different mediums for writing including shaving cream, pudding, and paint
28 different writing papers including 4 with primary lines
FUN and engaging!
Allows for differentiated learning
Allows for customization
Supports visual, kinesthetic, and simulated tactile modalities to enhance learning

Skills

Letter formation
Identifying upper and lowercase letters
Identifying numbers
Identifying and writing names
Sight words
Word families

Wish List
The only thing I can think of to wish for is the ability to select which letters and numbers to write instead of having to follow the sequence.

You can find this app in the iTunes app store for $1.99.

I was not paid for this review nor is this review sponsored or endorsed by the developer or iTunes. All opinions are my own.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: app, apps, handwriting, ipad, ipads, review, reviews, Technology, whats app wednesday, writing

Digital Fonts

July 13, 2010 by Vanessa Levin

name card
Welcome to Technology Tuesday at Pre-K Pages. Today I’m going to show you how you can use digital fonts on your computer to save time and money.

In the picture above you can see an example of a name card I created for students to practice writing their name; I created this card using software called Fonts4Teachers. Fonts4Teachers comes with 31 custom fonts you can use to create name cards, labels, notes, parent newsletters, and more. You can also use other fonts such as DJ Inkers or search for free fonts on the internet.

Using digital fonts can save teachers time and money because you can create a class set of name cards in your font of choice to be used over and over again. You can also save class sets of name cards in different formats and sizes such as name labels, larger name cards for use on the word wall, and smaller name cards for the name chart etc. When you need a new set of cards just open the file and print instead of spending your valuable time writing out new ones by hand. If you have your heart set on cute name cards from the teacher store you can dress up your digital name cards by attaching stickers before laminating. For example, if your theme is frogs put frog stickers around your name cards and laminate. You can also insert a digital photo of each child next to their name on the card.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: classroom, early childhood, handwriting, homeschool, ideas, kindergarten, Literacy, pre-k, preschool, resources, teacher, teachers, teaching, Technology, writing

D’Nealian vs. Zaner-Bloser

June 24, 2010 by Vanessa Levin

zaner bloser
Welcome to Thoughtful Thursday at Pre-K Pages. Today I’m going to be sharing some thoughts on two popular types of handwriting, D’Nealian and Zaner-Bloser. I have included images below of both types of handwriting.
d'nealian
D’Nealian Above

Zaner-Bloser Above

As you can see above, D’Nealian has continuous strokes with curved and slanted lines and Zaner-Bloser consists of straight lines and circles. Here are my thoughts on handwriting with young children:

The letters we see in books are written in the “stick and ball” style.
Young children are still developing their fine motor skills making it difficult to write continuous curved and slanted lines.
The muscles in the eyes of young children are still developing and they have great difficulty distinguishing the “hooks and tails” on many of the D’Nealian letters; for example, the difference between lowercase j and lowercase i as well as the difference between the K and the uppercase R.
If young children are taught to write D’Nealian but asked to recognize Zaner-Bloser when they are tested it can lead to confusion and lower test scores.
Many districts use D’Nealian in grades K and up so they make their Pre-K students learn it too because those making the decisions are not trained in early childhood.
Many argue that D’Nealian helps students adjust more easily to cursive writing that is taught in later grades, but I take great issue with this line of thinking. Instead, we need to focus on developing student’s fine motor skills so their muscles will develop and grow strong and they will be more ready and able to write in cursive when it is time.

What method of handwriting do you use in your program and why?

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Photo Credit: Jan Brett