Better Letters (2.99)
USER REVIEW 1
Version 1.0
REVIEW – “If you always wanted fast, clear handwriting, now you can master this, anywhere, anytime, with your iPhone.”
This is the “personal handwriting trainer” app that just got recommended by GQ Magazine in their December 2009 article that just hit the stands: “Penmanship: It’s All in the Wrist.” It teaches an easy, efficient handwriting method that even works on doctors. (No joke! The company that makes this app is actually a medical software company, founded by a doctor who wants to cure the bad handwriting of other doctors and the general public.)
If you always wanted fast, clear handwriting, now you can master this, anywhere, anytime, with your iPhone. Besides the obvious things like letter and number worksheets, for your $2.99 you are also getting a lot of other helpful features:
- Informational text and audio (recorded by a professional handwriting expert with a smile in her voice) that tells you not only _what_ to do, but _why_ to do certain things when it comes to your handwriting.
- A list of 299 practice words (in the above text and audio collection) that cover all the two-letter combinations that occur in the English language. (You can also type in your own words for practice, in the workbook section of the program. You type in a word, and the letters of the word will appear on the screen one by one for you to trace and copy as many times as you want or need.)
- Three screenfuls of active links to websites that have even more handwriting help and resources
- Choice between two letter style variations of the efficient “Italic” style that the app teaches you, so that you can decide whether you want it completely plain and simple or more flowing.
- Choice among six electronic “ink” colors when you do your onscreen practice within the app. (Handwriting class was never like this … )
- And there’s even a built-in sketchpad application that you can use to practice and apply your new-found handwriting skills outside the worksheets.
The instructional material recommends using this app for brief periods a few times a day, which I found very easy and helpful. I wish that buying and using this app could be mandatory for medical school students, doctors, schoolteachers, and other people who tend to have bad handwriting. It would also be great for kids, not only because of the number of schoolteachers who have bad handwriting that the kids pick up, but because of the number of schools and schoolteachers that don’t even bother to teach handwriting at all. The cyber age gets blamed for poor handwriting, so it makes sense that now the iPhone is actually letting us cure and maybe prevent it with Better Letters.
Lou A
Better Letters (2.99)
USER REVIEW 2
Version 1.0
REVIEW – “BetterLetters takes users beyond mere copying of onscreen worksheets.”
Getting it “Write” on the iPhone and iPodTouch: new app, Better Letters “personal handwriting trainer,” seen in GQ Magazine
Deep Pocket Series, a firm best known for its medical software, now offers an iPhone/iPodTouch application to cure bad handwriting.
That app, Better Letters, launched on November 10, 2009 — eight days later, it featured in the December 2009 issue of GQ magazine (page 128: sidebar in lower right corner on cyber-age resources for handwriting improvement).
Better Letters is the brainchild of two people who care about the proliferation of bad handwriting in our high-tech times: Deep Pocket Series founder Harvey Castro, MD (an emergency medicine physician) and Kate Gladstone, a handwriting improvement specialist known internationally as the “Handwriting Repairwoman.” For $2.99, Better Letters provides instructional lectures (both audio and written) along with practice fonts which offer a choice of writing style, guidelines, and directional arrows — turning the iPhone or iPodTouch into a personal handwriting trainer.
Unlike other handwriting apps, BetterLetters takes users beyond mere copying of onscreen worksheets. Over and above providing sample letters and numerals to trace and copy, the BetterLetters application also includes features such as user-selectable “ink” color, a list of 299 suggested practice words (chosen to include every letter combination in the English language), onscreen instructional essays and audio composed and recorded by handwriting specialist Gladstone, a built-in sketchpad for independent practice and application of handwriting skills, and several screenfuls of active links to handwriting instruction web-sites selected by Gladstone to provide further resources for the study and practice of rapid, readable handwriting.
Why think about handwriting in the computer age?
• Even in the most highly computerized workplaces, computer networks crash or electric power fails. Even when computers and power sources function, physicians and other professionals must often must scribble quick notes, or perform other handwriting tasks. For example, a physician in a computerized hospital will often still need to give ward clerks the day’s handwritten records to read and process.
• Children, teens, and young adults face high-stakes exams, whose written sections increasingly include timed handwritten essays. (Since 2003, the SAT exam given to USA high school students has included a timed handwritten essay which provides about 1/6 of the total SAT score. When schools neglect handwriting instruction or use counterproductive instructional methods, BetterLetters allows students to gain and maintain competent handwriting.)
• Parents and teachers – at every level from kindergarten through graduate school — often need to improve the legibility and speed of their own handwriting in order to teach more effectively. (A teacher’s handwriting, if it lacks precision and speed, can derail even the best-planned lesson or demonstration at the board.)
Keyword tags:
handwriting, education, medical, Better Letters, Deep Pockets, sketchpad, ink, parents, teachers, children, teens, teenagers, exams, high-stakes exams, SAT, handwriting, education, penmanship, doctor
Extra links:
Information on Better Letters –
http://www.deeppocketseries.com/Better_Letters.php
Download page and screenshots for Better Letters –
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/better-letters/id335485938?mt=8
Further screenshots:
http://www.deeppocketseries.com/plugins/albums/slideshow/slideshow.html?bgType=4&bgStyle=
http://www.deeppocketseries.com/images/albums/NewAlbum_279b7/tn_main_better_letters.jpg
Corporate summary:
Deep Pocket Series provides medical software, including applications for the iPhone and iPodTouch. Its newest offering, titled Better Letters and featured in GQ Magazine shortly after release, provides handwriting instruction and remediation for MDs and others.
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Contact info:
Harvey Castro, CEO of Deep Pocket Series –
Harvey@deeppocketseries.com
Kate Gladstone, handwriting consultant for Deep Pocket Series
application Better Letters –
handwritingrepair@gmail.com
Kate G
Download Now
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Developer – Deep Pocket Series LLC
URL: http://www.deeppocketseries.com/Better_Letters.php
DEVELOPERS NOTES
Better Letters was created to improve handwriting. It was inspired by the instructional handwriting font work of UK handwriting specialist Christopher Jarman. The app provides instructional lectures, both audio and written, along with practice fonts providing choices of writing style, guidelines, and directional arrows.
With Better Letters, your iPhone or iPod Touch becomes a personal handwriting trainer.
Research shows that the fastest, clearest handwriters join some letters, not all of them: making the easiest joins and skipping the rest. Also, the fastest and clearest writers tend to use the simplest letter shapes, avoiding the complex and accident-prone letter formations of conventional cursive.
In fact, the earliest published handwriting books (half a millennium ago) taught a semi-joined style of this type – called “Italic” in reference to the style’s origins in Renaissance Italy – well before today’s more complicated cursive came along.
Now, more and more of those who seek better handwriting – doctors, teachers, and ordinary people of all ages in every walk of life – are reviving the Italic style because its high-speed clarity and simplicity agree with the findings of modern handwriting research and meet today’s continuing need for fast, legible writing whether on paper or in a pen computing environment. Better Letters puts an Italic handwriting class in your pocket!
Unlike other handwriting apps, Better Letters takes you beyond the worksheets. Over and above a set of sample letters and numerals to trace and copy, the Better Letters application includes:
User-selectable “ink” color. All letter and numeral examples display in black, but Better Letters allows you to work with these on-screen examples in a color of your choice.
Two variations on the Italic style: you have a choice of letters with, or without, lower-case exit-strokes. (Choose according to personal taste, or choose whichever version feels easiest for you to write.)
A list of 299 practice words, chosen to include every letter combination in the English language. (You can also input your own practice words.)
Onscreen instructional essays and audio by our handwriting specialist (Kate Gladstone, known internationally as the “Handwriting Repairwoman”) covering such topics as joins, stroke order, handwriting history, and development of speed.
Built-in sketchpad for independent practice and application of handwriting skills.
Links to handwriting instruction web-sites selected by our handwriting specialist to provide further resources for the study and practice of rapid, readable handwriting. (REQUIRES INTERNET CONNECTION: Wi-Fi, 3G.)
WHO CAN WRITE BETTER with Better Letters?
Physicians, nurses, and medical and nursing students can gain and maintain clear, rapid handwriting for situations that require writing by hand. (In the most highly computerized hospitals, computer networks crash or generators fail. Even when computers work, doctors often must scribble quick notes, or give ward clerks the day’s handwritten records to read and process.)
Children, teens, and young adults facing high-stakes exams can prepare for the written sections which these exams increasingly contain. (Since 2003, the SAT exam given to USA high school students has included a timed handwritten essay which provides about 1/6 of the total SAT score. When schools neglect handwriting instruction or use counterproductive instructional methods, BetterLetters allows students to gain and maintain competent handwriting.)
Parents and teachers – at every level from kindergarten through graduate school — can improve the legibility and speed of their own handwriting in order to teach more effectively. (A teacher’s handwriting, if it lacks precision and speed, can derail even the best-planned lesson or demonstration at the board.)
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