Handwriting Without Tears Homeschool Curriculum Review

If you’re thinking about trying the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum in your homeschool, you’ll love this in-depth review!

If you’re a homeschool mom who has had kids that cry about doing schoolwork, a curriculum with a title like Handwriting Without Tears definitely gets your attention!

That’s definitely how it worked for us!

While our oldest two boys were very proficient in math and reading skills, they really struggled with fine motor skills.

Teaching them to write legibly seemed like an impossible task.

But when we found Handwriting Without Tears, we knew we had to give it a try – and I’m so glad we did!

Now, nine years later, all five of our kids have learned to write legibly in print and cursive, and it’s all thanks to this great homeschool handwriting curriculum!

{{Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that I may make a small commission if you click through or purchase at no cost to you. For more information, click here.}}

Within our Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum Review, first we’ll take a broad look at the curriculum itself, and then dive into the pros and cons you’ll want to know if you’re considering this program for your homeschool.

Let’s get started!

Overview of Handwriting Without Tears Homeschool Curriculum

Handwriting Without Tears offers many different softcover workbooks, designed for kids from pre-K through fifth grade. There is an accompanying Teacher’s Guide for each of the workbooks.

First, here’s a list of the Handwriting Without Tears books in order:

Handwriting Without Tears Printing Workbooks

My First School Book – Pre-K

This first student workbook is all about developing writing readiness. Student tasks include coloring and counting, identifying shapes, and tracing.

Kick-Start Kindergarten – Kindergarten

The first of two kindergarten workbooks, Kick-Start Kindergarten emphasizes writing readiness. Students begin to learn letter formation for both uppercase and lowercase letters.

Letters and Numbers for Me – Kindergarten

In Letters and Numbers for Me, students continue to practice writing uppercase and lowercase letters with finger-tracing and large double lines for writing. Writing numbers is also taught.

My Printing Book – 1st Grade

In My Printing Book, students review uppercase and lowercase letters and practice writing sentences. There is a lot of emphasis on using proper cases and spacing.

Printing Power – 2nd Grade

Printing Power helps students practice their printing skills by copying paragraphs and poems, and writing on a single line instead of a double line.

Handwriting Without Tears Cursive Workbooks

While the 2010 Common Core standards do not include learning cursive handwriting, at least 21 states still have cursive writing as part of their elementary school curriculum.

If you choose to teach cursive handwriting in your homeschool, Handwriting Without Tears has got you covered!

Cursive Kickoff – 2nd Grade

This workbook is focused on helping students make the transition from printing to cursive writing. Each cursive letter is taught in both upper and lowercase, and there’s a handy “pretest” and “posttest” so students can see their progress!

Cursive Handwriting – 3rd Grade

Cursive handwriting starts off with a review of each cursive letter. There are lots of pages where students will write sentences, poems, and paragraphs in cursive.

Cursive Success – 4th Grade

This workbook is a great follow-up to Cursive Handwriting as it gives students more practice with writing cursive sentences and paragraphs.

Can-Do Cursive – 5th Grade

Finally, Can-Do Cursive gives students lots of practice with more challenging cursive letter connections. Additionally, students write cursive paragraphs, poems, and even thank you letters.

Free Resource Library

Whether you’re looking for unit study worksheets, holiday printables, or organizational homeschool resources, we invite you to join The Reluctant Homeschool Mama’s Free Resource Library by clicking right here!

With over 60 free printables, there is sure to be something you can use to make your homeschool even better.

Pros about the Handwriting Without Tears homeschool curriculum

There are a LOT of big pros about the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum:

1.Affordability

Handwriting Without Tears workbooks are quite inexpensive for a homeschool curriculum. Typically one workbook can be purchased on Amazon for around $15USD. Not a bad deal!

2. Low prep

While there are supplemental activities you could prepare, the workbooks themselves don’t require any advanced preparation.

Homeschool moms, rejoice!!

3. Easy to Use

There are Teacher’s Guides available for every workbook if you want to have some additional support in teaching your kids handwriting.

(Even without the Teacher’s Guides, the core workbooks are very easy to for kids and homeschool moms to understand!)

4. Fun to see progress

On every Handwriting Without Tears workbook, there is place for your student to write their name on the outside front cover.

We love to have our kids compare their name on the front cover with their handwriting at the end of the book. In every workbook, our kids have been amazed at their progress.

5. Supplemental resources are available

The Handwriting Without Tears workbooks are available in Spanish and French in the Learning Without Tears online store.

Additionally, there is now a Digital Teaching Tool for each book in the curriculum, which allows students to practice their handwriting on a touch screen.

Finally, there are hand-on manipulatives available for students who are strong kinesthetic learners!

6. Makes good on its promise

Finally, one of the best things about Handwriting Without Tears is that it’s made good on it’s promise for the past nine years in our home!

While handwriting may not be the subject my kids are most excited to do every day, they’ve never cried about it. In fact, they’ve almost never even complained.

We’ll take that as a win!

Cons about using Handwriting Without Tears for homeschool

Next, we will share one small con about Handwriting Without Tears that we’ve encountered.

It’s been our experience that sometimes our kids’ reading skills aren’t as far along as their writing skills, especially with our youngest daughter.

This means she ends up writing words and sentences without having any idea what they really say.

Of course, this isn’t a huge deal, but it’s worth mentioning.

A few fun supplements to Handwriting Without Tears

Finally, if your kids love Handwriting Without Tears like ours do, you may find that they want to fly through their workbooks.

If that’s the case, they may finish their handwriting workbooks before the school year is over.

To keep their handwriting skills in practice, here are a few other fun handwriting books to try:

Final thoughts about Handwriting Without Tears curriculum review

In conclusion, Handwriting Without Tears has been our favorite handwriting curriculum for our entire nine-year homeschooling experience.

In fact, there are public school districts all over America that are now adopting it as their primary handwriting curriculum too.

Lastly, if you have any questions about Handwriting Without Tears, please leave them in the comments below!

What are your thoughts about this Handwriting Without Tears curriculum review?

Handwriting Without Tears Homeschool Curriculum Review

Hi there! I’m so glad you’re here! I’m Jen, a former reluctant homeschool mom who is ready to help you actually enjoy homeschooling too. Read more here…

Recent Posts

1 thought on “Handwriting Without Tears Homeschool Curriculum Review”

Vera
March 18, 2023 at 9:50 am

I am looking at trying handwriting without tears for my older kids to learn cursive and for my soon kindergarten child. I have never used their program. Is it hard for kids to learn their special two line format? Was it confusing to use their two line format and then the three line format found in most other elementary curriculum books?
Are the manipulatives necessary? If all I got was the student book and teacher book is that enough?

Reply