She Wrote Characters the Way She Drew Pictures

I built Stroke Order, in truth, for my daughter.

When Iris first started learning to write Chinese characters, I sat beside her as she wrote and noticed she wrote them the way she drew pictures. Her stroke order was all over the place, with no habit of going top to bottom, left to right.

Writing like that, she could never get fast, and her hand could not remember the stroke order.

So I often had to sit beside her and watch. Whenever she got the order wrong, I corrected her and had her write it ten more times. But before long, she was back to writing any which way.

After correcting her so many times, I was more certain than ever that stroke order really matters. And I figured other parents must have been through something similar.

So I set out to make a stroke-order tool that would make kids willing to practise on their own and learn the correct order.

It Worked, but Gave No Reason to Practise

The approach came from the copybooks I used as a child: learn the strokes, then copy the character about ten times.

Once it was built, you really could practise that way. But... there was no incentive. Kids would only feel they had been handed more homework.

How do you get kids to want to practise on their own?

I designed a set of animal pictures. Every character learned earns one turn of the gacha machine and one picture. Collect all 30, and you earn a badge.

Was there any other incentive? I thought of stars. Kids collect stars and trade them with a grown-up for a reward. And the grown-up can use review quizzes to check whether the child has really got the stroke order down.

Two layers of incentive, so kids want to practise on their own.

Brushy

This is an app for kids, so why did it still feel a little dull?

I thought: let's give kids a cute character to practise with. That is how Brushy was born.

For Parents with the Same Struggle

The app suits first to third graders best. Used well, it should help them grow up writing neat, upright characters.

Iris does not really need it anymore. But I hope parents facing the same struggle can use it to help their children learn to write neat, beautiful characters.