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Cursive Writing Wizard

Mindprint Rating

Tags

ELA: Writing Elementary School iOS App

Skills

Auditory Processing Expressive Language Fine Motor Skills Visual Motor Speed

Mindprint Expert Review

Pros

  • The settings enable adults to make adjustments to optimize usage for all levels of ability, from beginners to good writers.
  • The graphics are cute and engaging and appropriately interspersed with the work to maintain student engagement.
  • Both Zane Bloser and D'Nealian fonts are available for practice.

Considerations

  • The usage reports are detailed by activity rather than mastery, so adults may have difficulty interpreting a child's level or progress.
  • Adults cannot limit the areas a child can use through the settings, so children could spend their time on the squiggles and circles rather than practicing their letters.

Mindprint Expert Review

Cursive Writing Wizard is a superb app to teach students to write cursive letters, numbers and words. The app enables adults to set the type of cursive letters, precision, and a variety of other features so that students can improve their handwriting at a graduated pace. This app has so many features that it is an excellent choice for those just learning to write and need help with lines or starting in over-sized letters to those students hoping to develop precise, beautiful cursive writing. The app provides a good explanation for adults to help children, and the usage reports provide extremely detailed reports on the child's activities. Students can play without the sound, but the sound adds fun, the phonetic pronunciation, and the option for children to record their own voices and hear them played back. The animations are bright and engaging and appear after every task is completed so that writing does not feel monotonous. Overall, this app is a wonderful choice to introduce or perfect cursive writing for students of all ability levels.

Academic Benefits

Improves academic skills

  • Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
  • Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
  • Presents educational concepts accurately
  • Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
  • Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
  • Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
  • Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)

Fun

Engaging for the Mindprint recommended age range

  • Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
  • Subject matter and problems are relevant, interesting and authentic to students
  • Visually appealing to children in the target age range
  • Provides virtual rewards or incentives after meeting specified goals or objectives
  • Provides a "break activity" between academic problem sets
  • Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
  • Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option

Easy to Use

Understandable for children in the Mindprint recommended age range

  • Has a free or trial version
  • Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
  • Provides an age-appropriate tutorial/first time users can work independently
  • Student should be able to use independently after first use
  • Has a multi-player option to foster in-person collaboration or cooperation
  • Multiple users can save a profile
  • Student graduates to the next level or topic only after meeting a benchmark
  • Can play without sound and not distract others
  • Students can save work between sessions
  • Can effectively understand and monitor student's progress (email report or in product)
  • Provides options to play in languages other than English/Good for ELL
  • Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
  • Overall - Easy to use

Manufacturer Description

• Editor's Choice Award (96/100) - Children's Technology Review
• "Simply an amazing app for kids to learn cursive writing." - 5/5 - Top Pick - smartAppsForKids.com

100,000 unit sold (30,000 to schools)!

• Show and enforce how to trace letters correctly
• 3 most popular US fonts (ZB, DN & HWT) + UK and French fonts
• Fun tracing using 50+ animated stickers, sound effects and interactive games that animate letters at the end of tracing
• Uppercase & lowercase letters, numbers, and words
• Ability to create your own word lists (and record audio for each word)
• Fully customizable to suit every child’s needs (letter size, difficulty,...)
• Check progress thanks to reports that display what the child has traced
• Shapes tracing activity for toddlers
• Left-Handed Mode
• Create PDF Worksheets and print them to help your child to write on paper

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PERFECT FOR KIDS

Kids want to have fun, and Cursive Writing Wizard offers a lot of fun to keep them motivated in the learning process!

• They can trace using 50+ animated stickers and sound effects
• Once tracing is complete, they can interact with them on 5 games that animate letters
• They can trace any word - like their name - and record their voice for each word
• They can collect stars in 5-Stars play mode
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PERFECT FOR PARENTS & TEACHERS

• Ability to create your own word lists (and record audio for each word)
• Detailed reports provide information on what kids have done, including the ability to replay and export the tracings to view kids' progress
• Share word lists via iCloud drive or other cloud providers, adhoc network, or email
• Multiple parameters to customize the app according to the child’s current education level (e.g. letter size, difficulty, show/hide model, allow to stop between key points, etc.)
• 3 most popular US fonts (ZB, DN & HWT) + UK and U French fonts
• Upper and lower case letters, numbers (and word lists)
• Letter names and letter sounds (which can be customized)
• A customizable 5-Stars play mode prompting the child to trace a letter or a word 5 times using different parameters (each step is more challenging)
• Create an unlimited number of users
• Many settings to customize the app (sound, game time limit, black background,...)
• Left-Handed Mode
• In the A-Z section, special graphics available to match letters (e.g. ant graphic for A/a)

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"Cursive Writing Wizard is just as wonderful and well-designed as the original Writing Wizard" 5/5 - AppyMall.com

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Privacy Policy

KNOW WHAT'S INSIDE
As a Moms with Apps member, we follow the "Know what's inside" best practices for kids’ apps

L’Escapadou takes children’s privacy seriously. We believe you should not have to worry about your kids being tracked by apps or websites. This app:
• Does not collect any user information (we do not use data collection tools)
• Does not contain in-app purchases
• External Links: Protected parent sections are available where you can send us a mail and check out our others apps. Before accessing a parent section, an addition must be solved so that young kids cannot access it.