My husband found this product at the mall before Christmas and decided to purchase it for my son even if he had already bought him a present for Christmas.

Though I am not too worried about his progress in writing, my husband is getting a little bit impatient. Overall, he does worry a lot about how the kids are doing. Much more than I do.

Admittedly, our son is quite lazy when it comes to writing. There is absolutely nothing to complain about when you talk of his reading skills but getting him to sit down and start practicing the strokes is one really challenging task. For those who don’t know yet, I do home school my son and since he got traumatized by school, I have been employing a relaxed approached towards his home education. That just means that if he isn’t interested in the activity, I don’t force him to do it. Sometimes, I just think that he finds the exercise boring and there is perhaps a more interesting way of presenting the lesson. For example, learning addition using books is way too ho-hum compared to, say, going to the kitchen and counting calamansi fruits before squeezing them or counting and adding his toy cars as he plays with them.

With writing, he has to be sufficiently motivated for him to finish the whole exercise. I feel sorry for him ’cause I understand how totally dull it is to do writing drills but then that was the only way I knew to teach him how to write.

Since he got the Vtech Write & Learn Junior, I would wake up in the morning to see my son fiddling with it. Now, his interest in writing is at an all-time high. What’s great is this product talks so I don’t have to dish out all the instructions to my son anymore. There is a Beginner and Advanced level and various activities like Letter Writing, Shapes, Counting to choose from.

I only notice that the software tends to be too rigid when it assesses your child’s work. For example, when writing letters in the Beginner and Advanced mode, your child needs to write through all the dotted lines that serve as his guide. If he so much as veers even a centimeter away from the center of the dotted line, the machine would say something like “Oh no! You need more practice.” even if the child has done a pretty good job of writing a particular letter, line or shape.

Good thing my son isn’t discouraged by this lack of flexibility of the machine. In the end, we all have to keep in mind that it is still just a tool meant to facilitate the learning process. Nothing will replace the guidance of a parent or human being.

As long as it stimulates my son’s interest in writing, it is good enough for me, for now.

(Note: This is not a paid review.)

Related posts:

1. Do you let your child surf the web?
2. Catholic Filipino Academy (CFA) Homeschooling Orientation
3. Teaching My Child To Pack Away His Toys
4. Breastfeeding is good for you and your child
5. Kids are missing Papa

Tags: teaching writing, vtech, vtech write and learn, vtech write and learn junior