Handwriting Without Tears app review: a user-friendly approach

Introduction

If your young child is getting frustrated while trying to learn how to write numbers and letters then it's time to step in and offer another approach. The Handwriting Without Tears app can be used on your iPad and provides kids with a fun and stress-free approach to the process. They will be learning and practicing how to write numbers and uppercase and lowercase letters, building their confidence as they go and hopefully eliminating the frustrations they have felt in the past.

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Instill Confidence

Part of the trick to ensuring your child's success when learning to write is to give them the confidence they need. The Handwriting Without Tears app approaches this by giving kids a pressure-free environment in which to learn and practice. They will learn and then practice the correct habits when it comes to formation of the letters and numbers. What's fun is that the app looks like a blackboard/chalkboard like they would see at school. It offers doubles lines so that way the learning experience is that much smoother. The app uses a multi-sensory approach, which can also help in your child's success.

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What's unfortunate is the pricing on this app. After you pay for it there are a number of in-app purchases that range in price from $3.99 to $11.99. It seems like you should get more content in the original purchase. The app was updated earlier this year with some bug fixes, the addition of student avatars, and some general improvements. It currently has 3.5 out of five stars from users. Browsing through the customer comments, they are quite mixed. A number of users have stated the app isn't very user-friendly and considering this is meant for kids to use that is a pretty big problem.

The Learning/Practicing Experience

The Handwriting Without Tears app allows kids to practice in any order that they want. It also offers the option to use the HWT Order, which has been "proven" to offer the most results. There are some parental controls and settings, kids will have their own avatar so multiple children can use the app, and there is a coach that helps them with mistakes and proper formation. All of the letters have three different difficulty levels and the idea is that as they learn and become more confident they can move up in the levels. To motivate them they will be awarded a star when they complete the level.

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Pros and Cons

Pros

• Kids will be able to learn and practice uppercase, lowercase, and numbers
• Each letter has three different levels of difficulty
• Kids will earn a star for completing a level
• Kids get to use an avatar to represent them in the app

Cons

• There are a large number of in-app purchases which can get quite costly
• The app isn’t always smooth or user-friendly

Final Thoughts

The Handwriting Without Tears app for your iPad is a great concept that seems to be missing the finesse and polishing of the details.