Book Description
It's so natural and easy, anyone can achieve elegant, legible handwriting.

Write more legibly…
These simple, slightly sloped letters were designed for both legibility and speed. Italic is a fast, efficient, and practical writing style that eliminates the loops and flourishes of conventional handwriting.

Italic handwriting is easy and natural…
Italic is a modern handwriting system based on l6th century letterforms that are highly suited to rapid and legible writing. Rhythmic patterns of sloped lines and elliptical shapes follow the natural movement of the hand. These handsome letterforms are as easy to write as they are to read.

Make a positive impression…
Your handwriting says a lot about you. Italic writing commands respect and makes a lasting statement about your style and competence.

Send handwritten notes you can be proud of…
Friends and business associates will appreciate receiving legible and distinctivehandwritten messages.

No more hand cramps or broken pencil points… New in this completely handwritten, revised edition of Write Now, is an ergonomically efficient alternative pen hold, offering relief to those individuals who tend to grasp their writing instrument too tightly.

Quick and easy reference… New supplementary section with a complete review of basic and cursive italic andcapitals.

This natural and easy handwriting style is a delight for both the writer and the reader. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Greatly helped this doctor with his bad penmanship
I originally bought this to help my sons with their poor handwriting.I decided to try the lessons myself so I could better teach it to my boys.I have enjoyed it and greatly improved the legibility of the progress notes I write in the hospital charts everyday.The entire book is handwritten, which provides extensive examples.

The margins are also filled with notes on the history of the development of our alphabet going back five thousand years.The authors point out several good reasons why the loopy style of handwriting taught in today's schools is more awkward than the cursive italic style taught in the book.I have notice that many of the doctors who trained in India use this cursive italic style and their hospital notes are more readable and attractive.

I highly recommend the book to adults who want to improve their handwriting.I also recommend the books to parents who wish to teach their children better handwriting.I would not buy the book and just hand it to anyone under the age of 13 and say, "here, read this."It would be much better to do as we were told in medical school: see one, do one, teach one.

Excellent penmanship program for teens and adults
I bought this workbook among many others (including elementary grade penmanship workbooks) in search of something to help my 15 year old survive rejection with no credit on high school papers due to illegible handwriting. Every night he agreed to work for 20 mins as part of the teacher's agreement to receive typed work for credit in the meantime. The course appears to be written for adults, is interesting enough for that, and is do-able by a high schooler. It also contains lots of snippets of the history of handwriting through the ages and I find it is helping him tremendously focus on writing while providing interesting discussions.It is obviously prepared quite thoroughly and professionally.I'd give it an A+++.

Better Handwriting
I needed a grown-up way to improve my handwriting, and this book was perfect for my needs.

Not for us.
Deadly dull and uninspiring.I am not a fan of the italicized printing that is used and do not aspire to emulate their model.Am throwing this fish back in the water for a refund. How did it manage to get 4-5 stars????

Just enough substance, lots of overhead
This book claims to improve your handwriting by providing excercises. This is actually the case. After going through a number of excercises (tracing and reproducing basic shapes and letters), my writing seemed to improve. However, from the 96 pages in the book, only pages 14-50 contain the actual excersises, the bulk of the book is formed by how our script developed, too many pages highlighting improvements of other book users, how to address an envelope etc.

All in all I think the amount of actual info you need to improve handwriting is too small for the price of the book. For people interested in this subject, go to http://briem.ismennt.is/4/4.1.1a/4.1.1.1.quick.htm and find lots of excercises to learn write in Italic. Definitely more than you will get via this book, and its free! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Handwriting program
I do recommend this program.It's simple, straight forward, and makes handwriting easy to learn.

Good beginner to handwriting
After struggling to teach the D'Nealian style of handwriting, I have found this book to be much easier for children to understand.It does not encourage slanted writing.But it does show how to easily connect the letters, which is what cursive means.Somewhat simplified, but that is probably okay.I like the workbook format.It teaches how to do handwriting with space to practice.I would use this in homeschooling and also as an enrichment tool at home for after-schoolers.

Great Books
These books are great for beginners and more advanced students. Each book takes the student step by step through the writing process with just the right amount of practice not to overwhelm the child.

Nice Handwriting Book
As a mom of a child who doesn't have beautiful handwriting and doesn't like to practice, I like this series.It's easy to teach and it's not filled with pages of writing the same letter over and over and over and over and...you get my point.The daily lessons are short and my son likes it.

Kids LIKE learning cursive!
My two oldest children, ages 13 and 14 always remember these lessons with a smile! "up,up,up like a helicopter!"How many children fondly remember learning cursive?This method really makes it fun, and it's fun to teach also. ... Read more

Book Description

This practical and informative book will help readers improve their handwriting and develop their own mature and individual style. Teach Yourself Better Handwriting includes self-diagnosis tests to identify problems, "before-and-after" examples illustrating common faults, and a detailed section on holding the pen. It also offers advice to those with special circumstances that may affect their handwriting, such as being left-handed or having a medical condition.

Customer Reviews (4)

Good Book
This book explains how to correct handwritng difficulties. There are many examples which makes understanding much easier. It's not entertaining and needs some commitment but I'm seeing improvement.

A good grounding
Hi All
I bought this book about 3 weeks ago and have seen a marked improvement in my handwriting.Its a little ponderous in its approach but it ticks all the boxes if you want to identify what makes your handwriting illegible and how to improve with practice.The exercises are pretty boring and repettitive but do them and you will find results in a few weeks can be achieved.The writing style put forward is rather like cursive italic (Getty and Dubay).

In my teens I trained as a draftsman and each morning I was obliged to spend 30 minutes (for a few months) retraining my cursive hand into printed lettering for architectural drawings.As a result I lost the ability to write cursive and my hand writing 20 years later was very scruffy and printed.My daughter started learning cursive at school so I wanted to re-learn and this has been a journey of discovery!

I like my emerging new handwriting and recommend this book to you!

I like it.
I really felt that this book improved my handwriting.I am more confident in my handwriting, and I am also more willing to write things down in cursive.I really apperciate this book and recommend it to others.

Help for the handwriting impaired
I'm 51 years old and have struggled with very poor handwriting since grade school.I've always been frustrated by pain in the back of my hand when writing.The hints in this book, including a new way to hold the pen - and some different ways to think about composing cursive, have totally changed my handwriting.I'm no longer ashamed to write cursive notes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Sloppy writers take heart!
This book is designed to let adults withless-than-perfect (i.e. illegible) handwriting analyze and correct their own worst habits. Rather than forcing a return to strict third-grade, Palmer-method cursive, Ms.Ernst's book encourages the student to develop a clear, yet distinctive,handwriting style. ... Read more

Book Description

Grades PreK-6~These subject-specific workbooks are beautifullyillustrated in full color and are designed for students who needintervention or enrichment. Perforated pages, easy-to-follow directions,and answer keys make these workbooks suitable for mastering basic skillsat home or in the classroom. Subjects range include language arts andreading, math, science, and Spanish. Areas covered are beginning andemergent skills in shapes, colors, and numbers, to advanced concepts inalgebra and geometry. There are two handwriting titles that demonstratetraditional manuscript and cursive writing. This series is perfect forsummer refreshers or extra help all through the year. 8.375" x 10.875".Reproducible. 80pp. $4.99.

Product Description
Volume 2 of a 2 volume set includes photos, examples, history, anecdotes and lots of examples of early american handwriting. Chapters cover Penmanship of Platt R. Spencer; Letterforms; Correspondence Writing; Signature Writing; Novelty Styles; and Off-Hand Flourishing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Real Source
Michael Sull is a valued researcher and those who wish to go to the real source of American Handwriting development must have this book. It is available at http://www.johnnealbooks.com/ ... Read more

Book Description

Grades PreK-6~These subject-specific workbooks are beautifullyillustrated in full color and are designed for students who needintervention or enrichment. Perforated pages, easy-to-follow directions,and answer keys make these workbooks suitable for mastering basic skillsat home or in the classroom. Subjects range include language arts andreading, math, science, and Spanish. Areas covered are beginning andemergent skills in shapes, colors, and numbers, to advanced concepts inalgebra and geometry. There are two handwriting titles that demonstratetraditional manuscript and cursive writing. This series is perfect forsummer refreshers or extra help all through the year. 8.375" x 10.875".Reproducible. 80pp. $4.99.

Product Description
It is cleary illustrated and logically explains the philosophical and psychological basis for scientific handwriting analysis. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Handwriting in a high tech world
Despite all the hoopla surrounding the paperless society, I (and everyone I know that I have informally polled) find myself writing plenty for business and for pleasure. In fact, my motivation for purchasing and reading this book came from my children. They told me with that innocent honesty that they couldn't read the letters that I sent to camp for them. When I offered to type the letters, they told me that they would rather keep it the way it was, because they liked to get them even though they couldn't (save the oldest, who was recruited as translator) read them. I was struck with the truth; you give something extra of yourself when you write your own words in your own hand.
I found this to be the only book on the subject for adults at the local bookstore at that time. I read the introductory chapters with scepticism as it tried to point out the characteristics of handwriting that have been related to personality type, but that's my bias. It was entertaining enough otherwise, and there were some signatures of famous people that were interesting. The meat was next: 1)a discussion of why handwriting is generally done poorly in this country 2) a plan to improve handwriting by a combination of exercises. This book leaves you to design your own exercises within a general overall framework provided by the author. I was highly motivated, so that was enough for me. Others might have preferred a more step-by-step approach. I was introduced to an economical form of cursive writing and invited to incorporate aspects of it into my own style.
The result of my 30 day exploration was significant. Others at work who saw me doing the exercises on my free time became interested in the process. My handwriting improved in readability and style because of better small muscle function in my hand, but more because my perception of what constituted readable script had changed. My eye was interpreted my own handwriting differently. In the last 3 years, my handwriting remains much different and more easily read than before. The quality of my work in healthcare has improved because people read my handwriting without difficulty, and more of it gets read. And the kids can read what comes to camp.

Wonderful Book that Really Works
This is a wonderful book that really works. Every since I was an elementary school child I had been plagued by feelings of inferiority because of my atrocious handwriting. In my late teens, in an effort to solve this problem, I gave up cursive writing all together and tried block printing. This was slow and tedious and the results were scarcely more legible. My handwriting was still a joke, so bad that even I found it impossible to read.

Beautiful handwiting has always held a fascination with me and I love the simplicity of pencil or pen on paper. After frequent attempts to write more neatly however,Iassumed that this was a skill that was beyond me: my poor handwriting was something I would have to live with. I did so - for many years.

In my late 30's I found this book in a second hand book shop and purchased it immediately.Improving my handwriting took longer than 30 days, but after half a year of practise I suddenly began to recieve compliments on my penmanship. The high point came when a student approached me after a class (I am a teacher) and mentioned how much she admired my writing.

Rather than stressing individual letters, Paula breaks down handwriting into a series of basic shapes and stresses rhythm instead. Students work at writing down a series of patterns such as "waves" or "hoops." I found performing these exercises to be enjoyable and relaxing and did most of my practise, about 10 minutes every day, during a series of tedious staff meetings. After 30 days there was definately some improvement but in my case several months were necessary before I could feel confident going public with my new skill.*

I wanted to buy a copy of this book for a friend and was shocked to see it was no longer in print. Someone should reprint it. I would like to use this message board to publicly thank Paula and commend her for being an excellent teacher.

(*Unfortunately my happiness was short lived. A year later I developed RSI from excessive computer use and this, of course, desroyed my ability to write.) ... Read more

Book Description
While adults recite directions, children trace with their finger (Book 1) or crayon (Book 2) lowercase manuscript letters, developing letter recognition skills and readiness for formal handwriting instruction.Book 1. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great for preschoolers learning their letters.
This is a great book for preschoolers who are still learning to recognise their letters.The introduction explains that this workbook is not intended for handwriting exercises.My son knew his alphabet at two years old and started asking me to "write".I bought this workbook which instructs the parent how to give oral directions while the child traces the letters withtheir finger.The directions are silly (make a monkey tail, a fishhook, etc), so we both had fun, and he now knows the shapes of his letters.He is now three, and has moved into the next book which uses a crayon. To get more use out this, I put the pages in plastic page protectors and put them in a three ring binder so that they won't tear or get dirty.Now my daughter is two, and she is starting to trace the letters.For us, this has been something fun; however, I think that if your child is already using a pencil and starting to write this workbook would not be advanced enough.

A nice idea, but not well implemented.
I bought this book for my 5 year-old, who is in Kindergarten and working every day to practice her letters. The structure of the book is fine, but the overall size of the letters is much too large. Children at this stage are by now writing with pencils, and the size of these letters forces themback to crayons. This might work for younger children who are unused topencils, but I honestly don't think a 3 year old needs to worry aboutforming D'Nealian letters properly. Had the letters been smaller this wouldhave been fine. I felt the same way about Book 2 in this series as well. ... Read more

Book Description
BFH, a Manual for Fluent Handwriting, a printed manual with a CD-ROM, evolved from elementary classroom experience.

The manual is the heart of the BFH program. Here you will find all you need in order to learn and teach handwriting effectively, or to remediate your handwriting. Detailed information regarding recommended posture, character formation, problem solving, etc. is in the printed manual. It is the reference for the material on the CD-ROM.

The CD-ROM is a unique, cross-platform, interactive means of providing supplements to the BFH program. Eliminated is the clutter and expense of a teacher's manual and a stack of workbooks for every class. There is just the manual and a CD-ROM. Everything that might be in workbooks is on the CD to be printed out for students. You are not restricted to any one sequence of exemplars. You can meet your needs, or the needs of students with a selection of more than 225 pages, and many suggestions for handwriting related activities. You will find the CD more instructive, and much more fun than static, boring, trace-and-copy workbooks.

You can edit exemplars. If the default text on a page you want to use has little meaning or interest to students, you can change the text to make it relevant for them. Too often, the text and illustrations in workbooks have no meaning for students, and they may be a bit trite as well. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

good information, expensive and cumbersome to use
As an occupational therapist, I receive many referrals for handwriting.After researching different fonts/scripts, I've decided to teach italic cursive rather than conventional cursive.BFH, a Manual for Fluent Handwriting has good information that would be useful to someone teaching (and learning) BFH, but that is where my praise for this product ends.The accompanying CD allows the user to make custom worksheets, which is nice, however in order to type joined letters (cursive), one needs to use alternative keystrokes.A flier included in the manual exclaims, "Exciting News!" and tells us that for "just $20.00" the buyer of the manual can purchase an updated font that allows one to type with automatic joins (thus eliminating the need for additional/alternative keystrokes). Another disappointment is that there are some errors/omitions and additions to the book that have been corrected by inserting loose papers into the manual.It is nice to have the corrections, but for the price I paid, I would expect a revised edition.Overall, I feel this book is overpriced and the accompanying CD is combersome to use.
I much prefer the Getty/Dubay Italic Handwriting Series along with StartWrite (software that has a variety of fonts and options for making custom worksheets) to BFH for teaching cursive. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Ok handwriting book
As an elementary school teacher overall I did not like the layout of this book.It goes in the order of the alphabet and each page has a poem you are supposed to copy.Someone that is just learning cursive will not be able to do all that poetry copying.Plus, it is easier to learn lowercase letters first that are similiar strokes.As a review it would fine but not for an introduction to cursive.The insert in the middle is awesome and helpful with knowing how to make each letter.So overall it is ok.

For Older students
If your looking for a workbook for students just starting cursive handwriting, this isn't it. It does come with heavy weight tearout flash cards but it has no tracing to start out early learners. It jumps rightinto practicing letters by yourself and coping poetry.

A good resource with additional options.
I bought this book, along with some others, for my 2nd grader this past winter. It contains the usual practice areas for writing the letters, as well as a poem on each page to copy, emphasizing the chosen letter. The best part is the pull-out practice cards which allow a youngster to reviewthe process of forming the letters by tracing with their fingers (a processthe Montessori method uses as well). An excellent resource for your child. ... Read more

Book Description
Reinforcement activities for basic skills! Help is here for the student who needs extra practice with basic skills, for the accelerated student who enjoys an extra challenge, and for the young learner who is developing basic concepts and readiness skills. These inexpensive booklets boost self-confidence and reinforce basic skills with activities that are geared to a specific grade level. Packed with fun-to-do activities and appealing art to motivate students. Answer keys are included where needed. For individual use in the classroom or as homework. Reproducible. Compact 7" x 9" (18cm x 23cm). 56 pp. ... Read more

Product Description
Paperback Grade 4 SCOTT FORESMAN-ADDISON WESLEY D'NEALIAN HANDWRITING nonconsuable student book, ISBN# 0-673-59292-8. ... Read more

Product Description
Spiral bound SCOTT FORESMAN-ADDISON WESLEY D'Nealian Handwriting TEACHER'S EDITION. Contains the pages of the student book (answers in red), with teacher's information in the side and bottom margins. ... Read more