Reviews

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Reviews are kindly supplied by teachers, parents and students who tried and tested EdAlive software and liked what they found.

Teacher/Parent Review

'I've been playing around with an EdAlive product called Aussie School Fonts Deluxe. Let me share with you what I've discovered...'

Is your child going to be a doctor?

'As a teacher you need to meet the parents of the children entrusted to you at the beginning of each school year. On one such parent/teacher occasion I spoke with a parent of a young man I was to teach and his mum told me, in a very insistent manner, that her son was going to be a doctor when he grew up. I agreed that would be a noble pursuit but wondered how she could be so confident about it and she replied, "I'm sure because he has such shocking handwriting that nobody can read!"'

Good handwriting skills are important

'The technical teaching of handwriting is just one small component of a very busy and full curriculum, yet it impacts on most areas of the curriculum. Granted, the use of computers is taking over our society at a very rapid rate, but there is still the need (let's hope there always is!) for everybody to be able to write in a printing or cursive style that is legible for everyone who has to read it. With time constraints upon the formal teaching of handwriting, perhaps we need to look for more opportunities to immerse kids in the particular font style they should be learning.'

Aussie School Fonts Deluxe – Correct handwriting for each Australian State

'This neat little software program is easy to install as a permanent feature on either a Mac or Windows computer. It lives in the fonts file and is another addition to the general font base already provided on your computer. The software contains the specific font style for each Australian State and Territory. That's particularly helpful if 'life' takes you to live in a new state because you'll be in the know about how the handwriting style might vary for schools there. The difference in letter formations is often oh-so slight but important nonetheless.'

Why the 'DELUXE'?

The original Aussie School Fonts covered the fonts style for each state in print only. The Deluxe version starts where the original left off, but also includes cursive handwriting ("running writing" to some of us) and, for most states, speedloops. This means that the complete product is now useful for a wider scope of ages and stages and doesn't become redundant after the early years of school, which means it's good value! The Deluxe version has the added features of being able to write not only in solid print but also outlined, dotted, print with guidelines displayed, pre-cursive, cursive, and (for some states) speedloops, as well as any combination you wish to make (e.g. dotted pre-cursive). There's a style from woe-to-go for every stage of handwriting development throughout the primary school years. Brilliant!

But wait! I found more...

'Aussie School Fonts Deluxe now comes with a nifty new Helper Program (you'll know it by the separate Koala icon on your screen) that allows you to convert text in any other font style into text of an Aussie School font. It's as simple as typing in or cutting and pasting the original document text, then highlighting that text and choosing the convert button to transform, within seconds, the text into an Aussie school font. From there you copy that new font text back into your original document. Think of any 'old' stencils you've already created, or text from a newspaper, extract from a book etc. and you'll be able to convert it into the particular font relevant and in keeping with the Education Department guidelines for your state.'

Aussie School Fonts Deluxe is useful for school and homes

Here's a few suggestions – though I'm sure you'll think of other ways it can be utilised within your own situation...

• Tailored handwriting worksheets and even general worksheets. Yes – it's easy to rely on the commercially-produced book but now and then (or even now and always) wouldn't it be great for handwriting skills to actually be relevant to the rest of the KLA themes rather than some isolated, and possibly meaningless, encounter. Tailored handwriting is right in keeping with Whole Language theory. The converting option in Aussie School Fonts Deluxe means useful text associated with any other KLA area can be adapted.
• Publishing of creative writing and other written material by children especially work which will be on display around the school, the internet, in the school magazine or throughout the community.
• Use Aussie School Fonts Deluxe when publishing the school's regular newsletters so that parents and carers at home can see the correct handwriting model for their own school or state.
• As a reference on the family's home computer for parents so that at homework time when they're teaching their little ones how to write correctly (whether that be print or cursive) they're showing them the correct style they see in school.

Four year-old Gracie...

'My four year old daughter is starting to write various letters of the alphabet. She's keen to know what they are and how to write them. Now's a great time to demonstrate to her the correct writing style she'll be learning at school. We're also making a picture dictionary together with words in it that are relevant and have meaning specific to her (e.g. photographs of her friends with their names printed nearby; all in the correct handwriting font for our state.)'


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