Handwritten JournalThe child's own sentence is the guide text. The feedback happens while they write it.
A child dictates what happened today; the transcript is laid out on a ruled page as guide text in a large print face. They write over it with an Apple Pencil. Each letter is scored for accuracy as the ink lands, stroke order and direction are judged against ball-and-stick print formations, and a letter formed out of order triggers a demonstrate-then-trace lesson before the page continues. Finished lines lose their guide and stay as the child's handwriting; the page is archived with its transcript.
Per-letter accuracy
Ink inside the letterform is green, outside is red, live. An untraced letter scores zero, so half a word scores like half a word.
Order judged leniently
A letter whose parts were drawn out of the taught order, or against the taught direction, keeps 80% of its score. Pen lifts and go-overs are ignored; ink that barely lies along the formation is not judged at all.
One lesson per word
When a word is finished with a wrong-order letter, that letter is demonstrated stroke by stroke and traced correctly before writing resumes — and only that letter.
Adjustable, per child
- Two typefaces — one print face, Jua, and one cursive, Playwrite, a traditional American model — and five sizes, each previewed at real size. Stroke-order judgment is active in both: each one's formations were drawn by hand letter by letter, including the cursive.
- Designed for Apple Pencil; a left-handed layout mirrors the controls and the row handles.
- A color-blind ink pair (blue and orange) in place of green and red; haptics on or off; guide lines on or off.
- Progress kept per typeface-and-size setting, so moving a child to a smaller size never reads as regression.
- A practice sheet — every letter Aa to Zz and 0 to 9 — traced with the same engine as the journal page, a blue dot marking where the letter in hand begins. A Tutor switch on the sheet itself, on by default and kept per child, decides whether a letter's formation is animated before it is traced, or only replayed after an attempt that ignored the taught order.
- Voice feedback — spoken cues that name the letter on the practice sheet and mark a finished line on the page — on or off per child, beside haptics in that child's settings.
What it is, and is not
It is a journal with a handwriting engine underneath, for children of roughly five to eight who can speak in sentences. It is not a clinical instrument: there are no norms, no timing measures, no letter-size analysis and no cursive curriculum — one cursive face, Playwrite, sits beside the print face. Print formations follow ball-and-stick in the order most US classrooms teach; it is not a licensed program. The child's journal stays on the iPad unless a grown-up sends a page; the privacy policy says exactly what sharing holds, and for how long.
If it would help your caseload to have something it does not do, say so. The requests list is the roadmap.