Handwriting App Reviews

** means it is one of our favorite apps and we are using it with our students.

• ** LetterSchool - $2.99  by Sanoma Media Netherlands B.V.Year Published:  This is one of my most favorite apps. The kids absolutely love it. They can do lowercase,  uppercase, and numbers. The students first watch a letter formed with a fun animation.  Then the kids trace the letter. If they don't do it correctly, the animation bounces back  to the beginning of the letter part they were working on and they start over. Then you  have to do it without something to trace. If you can't do it after 3 tries it gives you  flashing arrows to follow. Each time you complete a letter it gives you a star. When  you finish all the letters in the section it gives you an entire new set of animations.  My students loved getting the stars and would spend their free time doing this app to  earn them.

• Handwriting and Sight Word Tutor - Free (.99 for adds free)  by Sheeba KadiwalaYear Published:  This app has adds all over it. It is a bit cluttered and not intuitive. It has the same cheer  after each successful answer, which gets a bit annoying. The lines for handwriting are a  bit small and it doesn't give you any directions on how to form the letters. I removed  this app from my iPad.

• Ollie's Handwriting & Phonics for iPad - Free by Blue Mango LLCYear Published:  It has in-app purchases, which we can not do with bulk purchasing that apple provides. The app does capitals, lowercase, and words. It says the letter, sound, and an the name of the image that is with it. H = helicopter. It writes it in chalk for you and then you get to do it. The cheer when you get it right is nice and short. It has a start to tell the kids where to start. You can turn the sound on or off. The word does only one letter at a time. It does the letter and then you do the letter. Then it moves onto the next letter of the word. You can add your own words to the word list. Then it says each letter, but does not say the word. You can also turn the outline off. It is a nice app, but letterschool is so much more engaging and the immediate feedback and different levels is better.