If I told you that with 15 minutes per day, you could teach your children an important life skill, hide God’s Word in their hearts, and empower them to bless and encourage others … would you ask, “How?” 

Of course, you would!

The answer is going to sound like an infomercial for our sponsor, A Reason For … but please hear me out! 

My husband Kevin and I homeschooled our children for 20 years, and all four of them used A Reason For Handwriting. (This was long before this blog was created, and certainly well before I knew I’d ever be professionally affiliated with A Reason For in any way.)

I can say without hesitation or qualification: I love A Reason for Handwriting! 

Here are a few of the many reasons why I’m so passionate about handwriting in general, and this curriculum in particular: 

1.  Handwriting is still important — perhaps even more so in a culture where we communicate primarily with a keyboard. Our children need intentional, daily practice to ensure they develop this important life skill. What we don’t use, we may lose.  
   
2. While cursive instruction is being removed from many public schools (although the trend is being reversed in some places, as decision-makers realize the error of eliminating it), we must intentionally teach our children cursive. At a minimum, they need to be able to sign their name on important documents.  

   At a recent homeschool convention, a visitor to the A Reason For booth told me a story about her nephew, who received a high school graduation card from his grandmother. Unable to read the personal note written in cursive, he handed the card to his mother to read aloud to him! Surely, a high school graduate should be able to read a card from his grandmother! 

3. Our country’s founding documents were written in cursive — and as a friend often says, “Who will you trust to tell you what the Constitution says, if you can’t read it for yourself?” Future generations of home-educated students may end up being the citizens most passionately defending our rights and freedoms … after all, they might be the only ones able to read and know our Founders’ intentions! 
   
4. Repetition brings mastery and memorization. As our children review the same verse each day, they will naturally hide that scripture in their hearts. What a joy to realize that kids who complete Levels A-F in A Reason For Handwriting during their elementary years will write — and most likely, memorize — close to 200 weekly Bible verses!  
5. As followers of Christ, the Word of God should be the foundation of everything we teach our children. Our time is with them is short! We need to intentionally, strategically fill their hearts and minds with God’s truth during these formative years. What a blessing to find resources that support this goal while also teaching an important academic subject. 
   
6. We want our children to live an active faith — to lean into the joy of encouraging and blessing others. When they complete their weekly border sheet each Friday, the result is a gift that can be released to bless someone. Our children will grow to understand that God’s Word is the greatest way to encourage others. Here are just a few of the many folks in your child’s life who could be blessed by a handwritten border sheet:

• Your pastor 
• Church secretary 
• Sunday School teacher 
• Grandparent or elderly relative 
• Nursing home resident 
• Soccer (or other sport) coach 
• Sports team sponsor 
• Piano teacher 
• AWANA leader 
• Widowed neighbor 
• Hospitalized friend 
• Missionary 
• Operation Christmas Child shoebox recipient
• Babysitter 
• Prison inmates 
• Deployed military
  
• Librarian 

 To showcase your child’s weekly Bible verses at home, consider some of these possibilities: 

1. Purchase a frame to display your child’s border sheet. These can be changed out seasonally or, if you have multiple children doing Handwriting, simply rotate whose work is displayed each week.
2. Create a memory book of verses by slipping border sheets into page protectors and keeping in a three-ring binder. 
   
3. Keep a digital portfolio of your child’s work and show the progress as their penmanship improves by scanning each week’s border sheet before blessing someone else with it.
4. Use a scanned copy of a holiday-themed border sheet to create Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Easter cards to mail to friends and relatives.  

If you haven’t included handwriting in your homeschooling up to this point, I’d encourage you to read this post that highlights some very convincing reasons to add it to your curriculum. Like most of us, you may be more than ready for a break as you prepare to celebrate Christmas … but when you start back to school next month, why not begin teaching a new, important skill?

Aren’t sure what penmanship instruction entails? You can go here to download free samples of A Reason For Handwriting for each grade level — along with a free seasonal border sheet. (You might want to bookmark the link and visit regularly for the featured free border sheets, too. It’s handy to have extras!) 

We would love to hear your ideas for sharing God’s Word with your child’s border sheet. Please leave a comment below, letting us know how your family is using them to bless others! 

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