Handwriting Without Tears Kick Start Kindergarten Printing Bundle - Includes Kick Start Kindergarten Student Workbook, Teacher's Guide, and Pencils for Little Hands

My 4 year old is loving it so far. Instruction is easy to read and work with. Great program!

Love this book for homeschooling my kindergartner!

I am homeschooling my son, he just started Kindergarten. I love this program! I will continue to use through his school years 💙

Overall this is an excellent program, but it's simply tremendously difficult to understand just what is presented in which level and what add-ons to buy.The Teacher's Guide: Awful and redundant. Like it's wild to contemplate how they managed to make this over 200 pages.Slightly useful components that are basically 10 pages in this bloated monstrosity:1. A chart showing each level of the program involves (conspicuously absent from promotional materials)2. A discussion of proper pencil grip and positioning the child.3. "Stories" to explain how the numbers 1-10 are drawn.4. Explanation of the "wood pieces", how to introduce them, how to describe the process of building out a letter to a child5. Description of the "Wet-Dry-Try" method using the chalkboard.6. Mention of the link idtt dot LWTears dot com /ext/TGKSK/2022 where you can put in any email address and immediately get free access to the digital versions of student and teachers editions for ALL levels of the program. Wherein you can then understand what actually happens in each level of the program and the fact that if you've seen one teacher's guide for a level you've basically seen them all.Levels of the program:Pre-K: "My First School Book"- Lines, shapes, uppercase letters. Intended to be done with crayon. Uppercase letters are only done large and while tracing, there's not a real expectation students will free-hand it. Lowercase letters are not taught here, but there's some odd add-on lowercase book for that level but it can only be purchased as part of a set with My First School Book, as far as I can tell."Transitional-K":"Kick Start Kindergarten"- Gentle introduction to uppercase letters, lowercase letters in pencil, with the feeling this is a first introduction to making letters with some free-hand exercises. There is "word" formation only to writing single letters to complete already printed words "C--W"Kindergarten: "Letters and Numbers for Me"- Faster introduction of uppercase letters, rapidly moving to writing them in smaller print than Transitional-K with practice there, lowercase letters. Copying of a few words and some short sentences.First Grade- "My Printing Book"- Basically assumes familiarity with uppercase and lower case letters, spends a few pages briefly reviewing them, then moves into writing words and sentences and substantial practice for students to hone what they basically already knowSecond Grade-"Printing Power"-Refresh of letters and numbers, emphasis on really refining issues that might be outstanding, then moving onto copying relatively lengthy sentences.So if your kid is only semi-proficient with a crayon, maybe do "My First School Book" (or look elsewhere to build motor skills). If your kid can sort of hold a pencil and make lines but not really letters, then "Kickstart Kindergarten". If your kid has some pencil grip and maybe a semblance of some letters already then "Letters and Numbers for Me". If your kid can make most of the letters pretty well but it looks like child scratch then "My Printing Book". If your kid has the letters basically down and needs to refine it further then "Printing Power".But, MOST IMPORTANTLY, you REALLY ought to buy the "Handwriting Without Tears Student Manipulative Pack" which is NOT sold on Amazon at the time of this review and goes for around $20. That's the mat, wooden pieces, chalkboard, chalk and sponge. That's what makes the whole program really work and superior to any other traditional handwriting workbook. It's making letter formation as independent as possible and the wooden pieces encourages students to learn how to make the letters without a guide. By using the borders of the correctly-sized chalkboard children with limited spatial skills can start to get the appropriate scale and positioning of lines to make a letter. The tiny chalk pieces naturally encourages a correct grip. The tiny sponges allow children to erase your example while precisely following the letter. The workbook itself then uses grey boxes with the same ratio and cues as the chalkboard and mat, making uppercase letter formation without directly tracing much easier. The tiny pencils included are fine, but I already had decent child sized pencils my daughter preferred.In summary:1. Probably skip the Teacher's Guide, and if you don't, only buy one at the Transitional Kindergarten level and higher and look at the others online at the link I put above.2. Definitely buy the manipulatives if your kid has little or no experience making letters.3. Probably skip "My First School Book" and start at "Kick Start Kindergarten" to get your kid writing letters with a pencil. "Letters and Numbers for Me" is probably for students with fairly decent pencil grasp and some ability to make letter-like things, but if in doubt I'd lean towards Kick Start Kindergarten for a more gentle progression and added practice. "My Printing Book" is for kids with some general competency with letters getting them into words. "Printing Power" is getting super fluent with printing.

I have used this program for years and years to teach and improve handwriting in my pediatric occupational therapy practice. Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) is truly the gold standard, in my opinion. There is an order in which children learn how to draw a vertical line, horizontal line, diagonal line, curved line, etc., and this book not only practices doing that, but introduces letters in an order that practices those skills in the way they are meant to be learned. The order of the letters throughout the workbook is not “random”, though it may seem that way. The teacher’s guide is a great reference and helps parents, grandparents, teachers, and therapists learn how to teach the HWT program the correct way. 12/10 recommend!