This is a review in collaboration with Edco. I was recently sent the handwriting series by Mrs Murphy to review. I remember the excitement in our school a couple of years ago when she first released her handwriting copies. We were amazed! No more time spent writing out patterns and letters for the children to trace over. Such a simple but brilliant idea! And now I see she has a series of books out- and they are equally impressive. There’s cursive and pre cursive in the series and I am most impressed, I’ll definitely be trying to get them if I have my old class in September! They would be perfect for the boys developing their writing skills.
The handwriting books are very well laid out. I love the copies too, they come with a page at the start which shows how the children should be sitting , good posture, pencil grip and page position. These are so important before beginning to write but I myself am guilty of overlooking them sometimes so this page will be a constant reminder for me! The books start off for infants with a variety of patterns before progressing to letters. There’s also matching pages, and revision and assessment pages too.
Book C incorporates styles of writing such as advertisements and invitations. It has Irish pages, eg ‘Tà an là fliuch’ , it has numbers , colours, rhymes, tongue twisters, SESE materials, it even has jokes! So not only is it practising their handwriting skills but also very cleverly integrates with a variety of different subjects. It’s certainly a departure from the traditional handwriting books.
The series introduces letters in letter families which is important, and starts with lower case in book A. It’s phonetically prepared too with cvc words and word families included.
It includes self assessment and free writing pages and provides supports for teachers in the line of planning and assessment.
The series is also supported by a bank of digital resources and interactive practice activities and videos.
I must say when I heard handwriting I thought it would be just another handwriting book like the ones I’ve used throughout the years but this series is much more than that. Mrs Murphy has a whopping THIRTY FIVE years teaching experience and this certainly shows in this handwriting series.
