I hope you’ll enjoy this engaging handwriting program as much as I do! It’s a wonderful and unique idea for teaching children to write their letters. Handwriting might even become their favorite subject! There’s also plenty of phonetic reinforcement as the TV teacher focuses on words that begin with the target letter. The TV teacher, Miss Marnie, is well-cast for this role. She has such a strong screen presence that I was surprised to discover that she is actually an occupational therapist. One of her patients, an autistic child, was making little progress learning to write after 2 years of therapy. His mother had an idea for helping him, enlisted the help of his therapist, and TV teacher was born! I met this producer-mother at NSSEA and was enthralled by the approach AND the engaging, lively Miss Marnie on DVD. I can see why this distinctive method has had so much success with both children just learning to write and with children who have learning difficulties.

The DVD uses strong visuals, rhythm, and repetition to help children learn to write quickly and easily. Each letter has its own chant telling the child how to form it (j is “drop down and a hook, dot your j“). Miss Marnie repeats this instructional rhythm as she forms the target letter. First, she traces over the letter, shown in a picture frame, with her finger. Next, Miss Marnie stands facing a blackboard, back to her audience, and forms the target letter several times while repeating the “chant” for the letter. She does this twice during the video. She then writes the letter on paper, again repeating the letter formation chant. Later, she repeats this process also. The orientation is wonderful for a child to see and copy. In between forming three iterations of the letter these five different times, the TV teacher thoroughly entertains (and looks like she’s enjoying every second of it). Short, narrated, breakaway shots of jellybeans, jogger, jump rope jumper, jaguar, jacks and words like jealous are interspersed with the instruction. Miss Marnie even leaves momentarily to change into a pair of jeans. The author/director has made a strong attempt to integrate early concepts like body parts, spatial concepts, opposites, animals, community helpers, etc. into the vocabulary words. The five-minute letter segments pass quickly -- the length is just perfect for teaching, reinforcing, and leaving them wanting more.

These are high-quality, very professionally done videos that just hit the mark. There’s an Alphabet Beats DVD for both upper- and lower- case letters. A pre-writing program is available also (see above). Accompanying workbooks are available separately. Both beginning and advanced books are spiral-bound at top and have one letter per page. Beginner workbook pages have two ample lines, one beginning with shaded letters, the other with dashed. Both lines contain additional starting points for independent letter formation. These books are best for very young children or those with fine motor challenges. Advanced workbook line spacing looks about 2/3 the size as in the beginning books, with 4 ruled lines to practice the letter. The first two alternate between dashed letters and beginning points for copying. The third has only starting points; the fourth is just a ruled line. There are pictures on the bottom and children are asked to circle those beginning with the target letter. There’s also a Dolch sight word to trace and copy.

Oh, in case you’re wondering...yes, the 5-year old autistic Ryan DID learn to write a letter in just 10 minutes using this video modeling program. And I think any child would quickly become engrossed in learning to write his letters with the help of the TV Teacher!