School Writing - learn the abc

What it is: a set of activities for developing handwriting skills (tracing, writing). Built-in sets include: practice sets (shapes, prewriting exercises, dot-to-dot activities, mazes etc), numbers, lower case letters, upper case letters and words.

What you do with it: add student's profile, customize the settings, add your own material (optionally), practice with your child or student (or let them practice on their own), monitor the progress. The typical single activity consists of 'learning' (watching the correct pen strokes for each shape/number/letter), practicing on your own following the visual guides and replaying/reviewing the learned material.

For detailed info we highly recommend the demonstration videos on the producer's website.

What we liked:the concept, range of built-in material (from pre-writing exercises to whole words, from basic letter tracing to puzzle-like activities), number of exercises (plus the option to create your own exercises), the options for following and monitoring student's progress, high flexibility and configurability, very informative instructions and help files (including demonstration videos).

What we didn't like: only a teacher or parent can assess the quality of student's strokes (there is no automatic recognition of drawn shapes so even when you draw abstract lines instead of the proper ones you'll always be rewarded with 'your such a good learner' message. Some letters (e.g. in the 'words' set of exercises) are small and will difficult to trace with a finger. Navigation could be more intuitive in some cases (some exercises require you to press a button to see a picture or play audio instructions).

Bottom line: an excellent, very flexible tool for parents and teachers with loads of high-quality educational material already built-in.

Appysmarts