The Learn Without Tears pedagogical approach to reading readiness remains a favorite in classrooms because of its focus on solidifying foundational skills through research-based practices. Using the Learning Without Tears curriculum, children begin a path to literacy that features a journey through the following steps: preparation, handwriting, phonics and literacy.
Two of the Learning Without Tears collections recently won Best for Back to School Awards from tech & Learning: Writing without tears and Phonics, reading and me. Read more about these award-winning products below.
There is extensive research showing the importance of handwriting fluency for literacy success. When a child recognizes that the lines she is drawing are letters that have names and a sound, the crucial phonemic connection is made. Using explicit, direct handwriting instruction, Handwriting Without Tears (HWT), a K-5 supplemental curriculum, develops foundational literacy skills to support automaticity and reading comprehension.
HWT’s multi-sensory tools engage visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners as they develop vocabulary, fine motor skills, and alphabet knowledge before writing letters. The student editions encourage success with a clean, simple and intuitive left-handed design. HWT includes a digital teaching tool that provides videos, demonstrations, student engagement, and teacher professional learning for handwriting success.
“Handwriting Without Tears is an excellent product for a specific need in today’s education,” say the judges of tech & Learning’s Best for Back to School Awards. “With many schools and families increasingly using technology, learning to write correctly at an early age is developmentally appropriate and necessary for learning.”
The student editions of Handwriting Without Tears are designed to impart more than fluent writing skills. Activities built into each edition help students connect handwriting to grade-appropriate math, social studies, ELA, and science topics. The digital teaching tool helps support effective handwriting teaching in the classroom. Many new teachers just entering the profession are not taught how to teach handwriting, so the tool helps support your instruction by providing consistent and effective instructional methodologies proven to achieve handwriting success.
“Given that 90% of teachers and OTs say they are very satisfied with HWT, you can also see that educators like what this product offers,” the tech & Learning judges note. “Use technology, manipulatives, sensory, music and more to learn the fundamentals of handwriting. “It is a great tool for this niche of education.”
Watch a demonstration of Handwriting Without Tears
Core instruction often does not include enough explicit, systematic instruction in phonics and word study, or students do not have the opportunity to practice their new skills with authentic reading and writing experiences. Phonics, Reading, and Me helps solve this problem.
Phonics, Reading, and Me (PRM) is a print and digital supplemental program that sequentially and systematically helps students acquire the variety of skills they need to become proficient readers. Prioritize phonics and word analysis skills that can be difficult to learn but make a big difference for students on the path to reading. Supplement gaps in basic literacy programs with foundational skills learned through rich, connected texts.
PRM can also help teachers who do not have time to differentiate and personalize phonics instruction. Using systematic and explicit reading instruction, PRM progresses sequentially from simpler to more complex skills to lead to reading comprehension. Explicit instruction in each lesson efficiently integrates new skill instruction with recursive review. Decodable text sets are organized by topic to develop content knowledge and vocabulary, including 50% social science and science nonfiction topics.
PRM can also help teachers as schools move from balanced literacy to the science of reading. “I like that it is the teacher who provides explicit reading instruction with the help of PRM while also including the ability to receive digital lessons,” the tech & Learning judges write.
