L’Escapadou
Updated on July 12, 2023
The Writing Wizard app from L'Escapadou is a great choice for younger, elementary-age students to learn, practice, and improve their handwriting through interactive activities on an iPad application. Writing Wizard is fully customizable to suit each student's handwriting needs by making handwriting practice fun and engaging through animations, stickers, and graphics. It also produces detailed reports for parents and teachers to monitor students' progress. After the launch of the iPad in 2010, Pierre Abel realized the potential it had to help students learn more effectively. He created this app while homeschooling his two daughters (also his first beta-testers) in order to make learning more engaging. Writing Wizard allows students to physically practice writing out words and letters in order to improve their handwriting and spelling. Writing Wizard is a good choice for children struggling with handwriting, and parents love it because it is very engaging and allows students to learn independently. Progress history and reports are also extremely helpful in determining what each child still needs to master. Some families struggle with some technological issues, such as the app not recognizing touch, but there are no major problems. It also may be too slowly-paced for children who are already proficient in their handwriting. We recommend using a stylus with the app, but it is not required.
Grades: PreK (ages 0-5), Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th
Cost: The app is free to download and use. However, it costs between $2 and $5 to unlock certain premium features, such as all letters and numbers and the ability to create and add words to practice.
OTHER DETAILS
Key features
Type of Tool: App
Time required: Students can spend as much time as required on the app in order to improve their handwriting. As they get better, they can increase the difficulty/length of words to make it more challenging.
Special Needs: Autism, Dysgraphia, "illegible handwriting"
Literacy Requirement (does a child need to know how to read): It depends; the app has different sections for letters, numbers, words, and shapes that the student can choose from based on their current abilities.
Screens
Screens: Screens required
Online requirement: Yes, it can be used offline
Time
Parent/Caregiver Involvement: Parent/Teacher/Caregiver Help is NOT Necessary. Kids can use this independently.
Prep Time: No prep time required
Other characteristics
Modality: Audio, Visual, Hands-on/kinesthetic
Adaptive: Yes, it includes personalization
Educational Philosophy: Montessori
Other characteristics: Hands-on, Self-directed learning, Fun and entertaining, Mastery-based learning
Accountability
Assessment: there are no assessments, but there are increasingly difficult levels and progress reports
State Standards: unsure
Teacher Accounts:
Read Reviews: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/writing-wizard-for-kids/id631446426#see-all/reviews
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