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Helping your Child with their Writing - a useful font

Apologies for this not being the usual discussion post - it's some computer instructions for parents instead. I had to provide these instructions for my cousin so I decided to make them available to everyone.

If your child is having difficulty with their writing, you can provide a lot of cheap custom material to help them by downloading the FREE National First Dotted Font from CoolFonts.

Procedure (for Windows XP - Similar for other versions of Windows)

PART 1: INSTALLING THE FONT
  1. Download the Font from
    http://www.coolfonts.info/font-3338-national_first_font_dotted.php

  2. Copy the font file somewhere onto your PC eg: C:\TEMP

  3. Click START, CONTROL PANEL

  4. Then double-click FONTS
    if you can't see fonts, then Control Panel is probably in Category view - in which case...
    Click SWITCH TO CLASSIC VIEW and then double-click FONTS

  5. From the menu, select File, then Install New Font.

  6. Change the Drive Letter to where you saved the font (eg: C:)

  7. Change the folder if necessary to where you saved the font (eg: C:\TEMP)

  8. The box at the top will fill with the list of fonts found at that location.
    Look for National First Font Dotted (TrueType)

  9. Click on it and then click Ok.
    A bar graph will display while the font is installed.

  10. Close the fonts, control panel etc...




PART 2: USING THE FONT
  1. Open Microsoft Word to a blank document

  2. In the Fonts dropdown, choose National First Font Dotted - it might be hard to read, but it's there, and the fonts are in alphabetical order - which makes it easier to find.

  3. In the Font Size dropdown, choose a big size eg: 72

  4. Start typing, it should come out dotted.
    If you need it to be fainter, try changing the color to light grey.

  5. When you've finished, print out the page for your child to practice on.


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Comments

meegz said…
I NEED help in this area. My 8 year old still struggles greatly with handwriting. This link doesn't work for me -- am I doing something wrong?
May 14, 2008 at 12:03 PM
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