3dGameMan …to the point news and reviews !

My 6-year-old son learned how to read before he was in kindergarten. Certainly, he was influenced by educational software! Now,this first grader is a proficient Mac and Windows user and reads on a 3rd to 4th grade level. While his math skills are outstanding, he’s still working on his programming. However, I haven’t figured a way to help him improve his handwriting skills through the computer….until NOW!

StartWrite is the perfect software program (currently available for Windows users on disk–plans are for a Mac version and CD-ROM version in 1999) to help kindergarten through 2nd graders improve their handwriting. This software is an outstanding choice for at-home practice, the classroom, and for home schools.

If you’re a parent of a 1st grader, you may be already familiar that there are different variations of printing which children can learn–depending on the school’s current teaching philosophy. I was happy to see Modern Manuscript (similar to D’Nealian) as a font option, along with the more traditional Manuscript (ball & stick) font, since Modern Manuscript is what my kid is learning at school.

Here’s why this software could be beneficial to you and your kids: you can type individual words, letters or sentences in dot or dash formats for the kids to trace! Whether it’s practicing letters and words for homework, writing first penpal letters or obligatory relative letters; or writing their very first birthday invitations, this software is an ideal choice to boost the self esteem of young learners–especially when it comes to fine-motor skills such as handwriting.

There are a wide variety of customizable commands (featuring easy-to-use menu bar toolbar buttons) which you can maximize to gear this program specifically to your child or your classroom.

You can select different densities of dots or dashes (heavily dotted or dashed letters are easier for beginning writers to follow); create shaded letters (four shades from heavily shaded to lightly shaded); add arrows to letters (another great touch for early learners..arrows indicate which stroke to make first and which direction to draw); change font sizes from 8 point to a huge 192 point (almost 2″ high); choose guide lines (which add dashed lines to the middle of each word and sentence; place a line under each word and sentence and another line above each word and sentence; underline each word and sentence or use no lines) and select page orientation (portrait or landscape). My son’s class, for instance, often uses 48 point (or smaller) type although some kindergarten and first grade classes learn with the 72 point font size.

My first grader brings home weekly spelling lists. He is asked to spell and write about 20 new words a week. It’s easy to help kids practice their new spelling words with StartWrite. Simply create your own list of words (and save them) and have your child trace each word (using guide lines which make it easier for kids to fit their letters on the line) and write the word next to the traced word. If your child struggles with this assignment, simply increase the font size to the next largest size or skip a line to give the child more room to work with. Often, children who beg for larger letters are quick to ask for smaller letters after feeling comfortable with the larger point fonts.

We didn’t have any installation problems installing the disk on our IBM Aptiva. After Timmy (my Windows guru) and I installed the program, we created a Shortcut on the Windows desktop (an icon appears on the main screen so that you don’t have to manually go to the directory each time you want to use the program) which makes the program a cinch to access.

A built-in Spell Check is included which lets you check over 100,000 commonly used elementary school words. Be sure to double-check your words, despite the handy spell checker!

You can also include clip-art in your documents. StartWrite includes 30 black & white bitmapped images and 30 color images. Kids can color in the black & white images while you can use the color images for special tests or parent/teacher presentations. Another option available is to import other bmp (bitmapped) image files with this program.

A new 32-bit version is available for Win 95/98/NT users which includes an additional font popular in home schools(Getty-Dubay, also known as Portland Italic). A January, 1999 upgrade will feature a Cursive Font as an add-on.

A free demo of StartWrite is available at their web site.

Check back with The REVIEW ZONE as I evaluate the latest versions of this promising software for young learners. After all, who says that using computers doesn’t help teach kids handwriting? With StartWrite, you can prove ‘em wrong!