TOS Review-Peterson Directed Handwriting

 Peterson Directed Handwriting  is not just another cursive or print handwriting program as I thought it would be.

It is a program that uses different colors in the strokes of the individual letters to help them learn the movement sequence and a chant or jingle to help them remember how the movement sequence goes. They provide E-workbooks to let you lead and print your own lesson pages from Acrobat Reader. The size of the worksheets are smaller and deliberately designed to fit the size of the child. This allows the child to hold the paper correctly and write easier and properly on the paper. They also have the Wacom Digital Tablet software if you pefer that route. Their goal is to allow the child to learn to write using their memory rather than draw from tracing or trying to match what they are seeing. And then finally, formulate that properly onto paper.

Many children usually have established habits of wanting to draw letters rather than write them but PDH teaches them to engage the motor system by not actually writing on paper at first. The chant or jingle they provide creates a beat and challenges the child to move with rhythm when practicing.

For example, the letter "d" would have the curved part in green and the stem part in brown. The child would say "poke around" as they drew the curve and say "tall down" as they drew the stem part of the letter "d". The child first practices this by writing it in the air. These steps teach a top down, left to right process vs. down up (as found in most tracing programs). PDH has a link to a video that explains why tracing may do more harm than good when learning to write. While PDH has many tips and information, there are four main steps they teach to enable the child to learn to write.

They are the following:

Step 1: Illustrate and Describe

Step 2: Write in the air and say

Step3: Finger trace and say

Step 4: Write and Say

My children loved this program. We are continuing to practice it. Peterson Directed Handwriting provides a way to review the childs progress as well. The Print version has Pre-K through Grade 4. The staff is very helpful. Rand Nelson was available by phone and internet to answer any of my questions. I would highly recommend this program to anyone searching for a handwriting program. The cost of this program is $75.00 each for PDF hand print or cursive or you may purchase the combo for $125.00.


I was offered this resource free of charge for review purposes only.