I like finding people passionate about their products. Rand Nelson falls into that category. If you want to know the ins and outs of handwriting and have lots of rationale for teaching a certain methodology, he is your man. And, Peterson Directed Handwriting is your product.

Product: Peterson Directed Handwriting
Details : Peterson Directed Handwriting offers an involved handwriting curriculum based on lots of research. The books begin with posture and procedure as well as teaching actual letter formation. I received the print books.
Price : $19.95 for each e-book

What we loved . . .

• Foundational. Peterson Handwriting offers lots of rationales and instruction for establishing good writing habits that even help pre-readers. Too often kids get into bad habits quickly in teaching themselves to write. Peterson addresses these and helps prevent or change them so children can write well fluently.
• Step by step. The product doesn’t rush into the writing. Students have four steps to follow — Illustrate and Describe, Air writing, Finger tracing, and finally write and say. This helps to ensure success by the time they take pencil to paper.
  
• Reuseable. Because this is an ebook, one purchase will satisfy all your kids. Copy and recopy as needed.
• Helpful. You don’t face this alone. Aside from a website full of articles and helps, Rand is available to personally answer questions and guide you through effective use of this product.
• Informative. The website is packed with information on how to teach handwriting. It also will help you understand why certain expectations are important. The even have a page full of coaching helps to guide you the teacher through the process.
  
• You can preview the product. You cannot print it out (you obviously need to pay for that option), but on their website you can see the complete product before you buy. One of the challenges of purchasing online is that you can’t flip through the pages and really see what you are getting. With Peterson you can! Look at the book, look at the table of contents, look at all 65 pages if you want. You know exactly what you are getting when you buy these ebooks.
  

Some considerations . . .

• Lots of preperatory reading and pre-teaching. The actual writing is the goal, but there are lots of steps and instruction before you get to that point.
• Not for every student. While the printable pages can be used by any student, the methodology might not be a good fit for all students. My son loved the verbal cues that matched the movements and the other prep steps. My daughter found them cumbersome. She likely did not really need all of that to get the point across, but it did definitely cement it in her thinking and habits.
  

Peterson offers a great product for beginning writers, or for those that need to relearn due to poor writing habits. It does involve a lot of teacher intensive time to make sure the student truly settles into the best writing habits. In the end, the time invested is worth the effort as these are habits that will last a lifetime.

For more TOS Crew reviews on this product, check out the TOS Crew blog.

Disclaimer: This ebook was provided to me free of charge through Peterson Directed Handwriting as part of my participation in The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. I received no additional compensation and the opinions expressed here come from my personal experiences and sincere thoughts.