Workbook Design

Sometimes Less Is More

At Handwriting Without Tears®, we believe in celebrating children and want them to be proud of their work so they can succeed. You'll see this philosophy reflected in our simple workbook design that is consistent from grade to grade. The pages eliminate visual distractions: the visuals are black and white purposeful images. The instructional text is easy to understand and written to reinforce lessons.

Large Step-by-Step Illustrated Directions

It is much easier for children to understand how to form letters if you show them how step-by-step. Other programs show only a completed letter with a bunch of tiny arrows pointing the way around the letter. It is very difficult for children to learn to write that way. Our workbooks contain large step-by-step images to show students how to make each part of every letter. Short, simple words describe each step.

Child-Friendly Consistent Language

Our child-friendly language evolved in response to other programs’ complicated letter formation terminology. When teaching letter formation, we eliminate language that erroneously assumes that children understand left/right orientation, clockwise/counter-clockwise, or forward/backward circles. We make it easy by using fewer, carefully selected words that children know or understand.

Double Lines and Other Lines

Our double lines foster handwriting success. Double lines help children place letters quickly. The mid line is for size. The base line is for placement. Small letters fit in the middle space. Tall letters go in the top space. Descending letters go in the bottom space.

Double lines make it easier for students to transition to other styles of paper. Children inherently understand the relationship between capital and lowercase letters. Our teaching facilitates placement on different styles of paper, regardless of the number of lines. We also give students practice with different styles of lines in our workbooks.

As shown below, many children have trouble understanding multiple lines. Giving children a blue line, a dotted line, a red line, and another blue line is too confusing.

Generous Spacing

When children are learning to print, they need extra room to write. Many workbooks and worksheets are poorly designed, requiring students to cram their words to fit into spaces that are too small. Our workbooks give them the space they need to write and develop good spacing habits. 

Left-Hand Friendly Design

Our workbooks are lefty friendly. Every page places the models so that left-handed children can easily see the model they are copying. Lefties never have to lift their hands or place them in an awkward position to see a model. We give models on the left and right so that when a left-handed child’s arm covers the left aligned models, they can still see a model to copy.

Page Design Celebrates a Child's Work

Our workbooks have black and white pages that are clean and clear. We deliberately avoid the confusing background images, overdone colored graphics, multicolored lines, and crowded pages. These fancy effects are distracting to the teaching and create visual perception difficulties for children. The simple workbook pages are appealing and invite coloring and drawing.

Left-to-Right Directionality

This is an exciting, unique feature of the HWT workbooks. Look at our illustrations. They promote left-to-right directionality. The fish, helicopter, ice cream truck, and other drawings are going left to right across the page to encourage correct visual tracking and writing direction.