Handwriting Heroes by Cheryl Bregman – Review and Giveaway



Are you looking for a handwriting app that makes it easy for your kids to learn, practice and internalize the skill? If you are, then you should check out Handwriting Heroes right away! Designed by an occupational therapist, Handwriting Heroes is a fun app that uses an integrated multi-sensory (visual, kinesthetic, auditory and tactile) approach to teach children of all abilities how to write the lower case letters. There are animated stories with playful characters, visual cues and guided practice to engage students as well as supplementary program materials to extend the practice beyond the iPad.

Students learn best when there is structure to help them organise the information that they are learning and in this app, the letters are sorted into five groups based on their beginning stroke. Each letter group has a handwriting hero that will demonstrate how it uses its superhero actions to write the letters:-

* skydivers for letters that skydive down (l, t, k, i, j)
* canon pops – start like c (c, a, d, o, q, g)
* bouncers – bounce down, up and over (h, b, r, n, m, p)
* skiers – ski diagonally down (v, w, x, y)
* surfers – surf the waves (s, u, f, e, z)

You can choose in the settings which letter group to work on and students can choose to play a specific letter from the main menu by tapping on the letter. Once a letter is picked, they will get to watch an animated story of how the letter is formed. The story also incorporates words that begin with that letter. For example, ‘e’ walks the plank, then surfs around to escape the evil pirate while ‘h’ drops down, bounces back up and over the haunted house. These fun animated adventures help students visualise the letter formation even when they are not on the iPad.

The cute and funny handwriting heroes themselves are the perfect cues to remind students on where and how to begin the first stroke. These visual reminders and the associated action words together provide important guides for students to write correctly.

After watching the animated story and learning the handwriting movement, the app automatically switches to the practice mode. There are 3 stages of practice – trace, copy and write and you can pre-select how many stages an individual student will work through. You are also given the option to choose the level of accuracy required of the student’s writing and there is no limit to the number of student accounts you can create (and customize). From the stories to the different practice formats, the 3 writing lines – skyline, clouds and grass lines are always shown clearly to help students make the necessary connection with the proper letter placement and subsequently transfer the skills to paper writing tasks.

In this app, students learn and practice writing the letters in groups. This definitely accelerates the learning process but if a student needs refresher on just a few letters, the app doesn’t offer a convenient way for students to keep working on a particular practice format for the same letter. Having a choice of repeat or forward button on the writing screen will be very useful in this case.

What I like about Handwriting Heroes is that it equips students with multiple ways to remember how to form the letters and there is emphasis on carry-over to writing on lined papers. To make it even easier for students to learn, a special Handwriting Heroes font was also developed to encourage the use of continuous strokes and to decrease reversals. You can download the font here to create worksheets and materials with the correct letter formation and line placement.

Students get different types of inputs in Handwriting Heroes to help them remember how to form letters correctly. From multi-sensory learning, progressive instruction, integrated practice and a specialized font, this app offers all the effective tools students need to master handwriting.

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Handwriting Heroes

Giveaway

We have promo codes for Handwriting Heroes to be given away during The iMums’ birthday promo code party! Check our Facebook page for updates! ‪#‎happybirthdayimums‬

If you would like to win the complete Handwriting Heroes program consisting of the app and all the supplementary materials (worth more than $20), please enter via the widget below. Winners will be emailed and must contact The iMums within 48 hours to claim their prize. This giveaway is open to everyone, worldwide, and an iTunes account is required to claim the prize. Please ensure you have read and understand our Terms & Conditions. Good luck!

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NOTE: A fee was received to expedite this review to the top of our waiting list but this payment has not influenced the objectivity of the review and all opinions have been offered honestly.

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