My First Book Of Tracing (Kumon Workbooks) Paperback – February 5, 2004

I always start my children with this book when I am ready to begin homeschooling preschool. I start them at age 4. My son just finished this book and my daughter did this book at 4 as well. They loved this book. By the end of this book they were more than ready to start learning to write their ABCs or 123s. The illustrations are very kid friendly and they loved the exciting "mazes" and other tracing practices. We did 3 pages (front and back) a day and they always wanted more. This is a great introduction to writing and pencil control. The book also works up from wide and easy space to trace in to more narrow and complex. It goes at a perfect pace for the young learner.Update 1/23/15: I still love this book. I have now bought and used it for everyone one of my 4 children over the years. It still remains the best book out there for teaching children to write.

I have two kids at the ages of 4 and 2. It is easy to find activity books for my elder but not that easy for the younger. Because, no matter what the books say in terms of the target age, the activities are often to hard for toddlers to understand or perform. However this book, truly is a great activity book for 2 years onward.It has 80 pages of activities printed on high quality paper and most of them are doable by a 2 years old, of course with adult supervision and help. The activities focus on following a path with a pencil which help the kids develop fine motor skills. There are easy ones like following a straight or close to straight line or more challenging ones like following a path with turns, curves and spirals (but not as complicated as mazes in which you need to choose between alternative paths).I think 2-3 years olds would benefit the most from this book, anyone older may find it too easy. I am happy for the purchase

My 3 year old granddaughter was told to 'write' her name on the valentine cards for her daycare. Obviously, the teachers would have thought any old mark was fine, but my granddaughter wasn't that flexible and was in tears. She just did not have the hand control to do those fine lines. So i bought this book. It is perfect. Not to hard but a bit of a challenge that she is well able to meet. Because she whips through the book so quickly my daughter made copies of the pages so they can be done repeatedly. She also has her use different colored markers so she can do the same exercise several times and end up with a wonderful rainbow picture. I doubt she can even begin to write her name but she has had so very many successes with "writing" thanks to this book that she is feeling pretty confident in her "writing" abilities. At 3 years old that is about the best you could hope for. I think this is an impressively designed book and it does a great job encouraging and advancing basic skills.

The Kumon My First Book of Tracing is a great beginning preschool workbook designed to practice pencil skills and develop fine motor control. The initial pages involve drawing a line from one object to the other. I really like how many pages involved swirls and circles which help with beginning writing letters. The workbook requires very little instruction. Ages: The two to four years old age range is very appropriate for this workbook. I would definitely recommend starting this workbook at two years old if your child shows a lot of interest in scribbling, otherwise starting at two and a half to three years old would be fine. Pencil skills are always good practice even for a four year old. Multiple Children: A workbook is needed for each child.

I got this for my 4 year old son who has autism. One of his goals for OT was to be able to draw straight lines. This book makes it fun for him. They have animal and object puctures where you have to draw a line from one to the other. I tell him "help the boy swim to the other side. He needs help" or "help the bunny get to his mommy" it works very well! Before my son had no interest in making a line and now he can do it and gets excited. So glad I found this book!

At first (when my DD was 2-3 years old), I tear each page out of the book and slip them into protective sleeve and just let her use dry erase markers on each page over and over again. As she works on them more often and she has more practice, the protective sleeves become too slippery for her precise pen work. I recommend that if you think you got your money's worth, take off the protective sleeve and let your child use it with a real pencil one last time. Using a pencil certainly enable my child more control and the lines turn out more straight and show how much more control she has with her pencil since she started with a marker. If I was to do it over again, I do not think that I will use the dry erase marker again. Using pencil and doing each page one time slowly and precisely is not a bad thing. My child is more satisfied with the tracing result and mommy will just spend more money and get the next book sooner! The content of the book is rich and is ordered in a logical way in that each exercise progress in difficulty slightly without the child being aware of it. For example, the lines to trace in gets more narrow towards the end of the book but the change is so small between exercise that it is natural for the child to continue onto the next page without much difficult. Overall, at the current price of $4 for the book, it is fair given the quality of the content. But at full price of $8, I tried to use each page more than once to try to get my money's worth.