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Becky Parker
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Okay, silly title I know, but when it comes to copywork I feel like I'm at a huge buffet with only a tiny plate! 
First, I've used a lot of copywork over the years. I think it's the perfect thing for teaching handwriting and grammar. I also think it's a great aide to memorization and instilling in my children a love for beautiful passages of literature.
That being said ...
I have a 9yo ds for whom writing is a major chore. I know that's pretty normal for a lot of 9yo's so I wont elaborate on his struggles. But, this difficulty he has is causing a bit of struggle as I try to assign written work. To put it in his terms, he only has so much "writing energy" so I don't want to use it up on unimportant things. (I mentioned this at the thread about spelling city because one of the benefits of doing spelling on line is a conservation of "writing energy" ).
I'm trying to decide, and hoping for opinions here, on what is the best resource to use for copywork. I have had my kids write the poems they are memorizing, great quotes from books we are reading, quotes regarding the virtues we are working on (from PACE), scripture verses, copywork from copywork books, etc. etc. etc.
But I feel like I'm in a sea of copywork options and because I want quality, not quantity, I'm having a hard time deciding.
I know I want my dc to do copywork everyday, if for nothing else, the penmanship practice. I'm wondering what you have found to be the best type of copywork?
Just a point to add clarification ... I love to have my kids use the poetry they are memorizing for copywork, but, is poetry good to use if I want to also use that copywork for teaching things like sentence structure? Poetry sort of has it's own rules, like capitalizing every line, so I don't want that to be confusing for my kids.
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Mackfam
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Becky Parker wrote:
| Okay, silly title I know, but when it comes to copywork I feel like I'm at a huge buffet with only a tiny plate! |
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Becky Parker wrote:
I feel like I'm in a sea of copywork options and because I want quality, not quantity, I'm having a hard time deciding.
I know I want my dc to do copywork everyday, if for nothing else, the penmanship practice. I'm wondering what you have found to be the best type of copywork? |
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I can really sympathize with your needs, Becky! My oldest son really struggled with the mechanical skill of writing. I can offer you hope though!! The consistent, gentle application of copywork and dictation have worked wonders for his needs in writing/penmanship and the mechanical skill of writing. Just in the past couple of months (he is 10 and in 5th grade) I have seen really tremendous and significant strides in his writing!! If you had asked me at the beginning of this year if this child would be ready to start written narrations in a year I would have said, "No way!" But, his writing is becoming more fluid, more consistent, and the act of writing is becoming natural. The awkwardness of holding pencil, forming letters, etc has given way to the gentle habits formed through copywork and dictation and he can now reap the rewards! This is the paycheck for me!!!
Anyway, all that to say that I discovered some things that I found to be important to my son in terms of not overwhelming him and gently but consistently building this habit and I hoped it would be ok to share them in addition to answering your question about copywork sources.
:: Timed copywork works better than expecting a completed selection for copywork. The SHORT LESSON format was super important with copywork! We started with 5 minutes - timer and all. We stretched to 10 minutes, and now my 5th grader is up to 15 minutes.
:: I encouraged/enforce S-L-O-W writing for good formation of letters. I learned not to blink an eye if only one word was added to the page for the day.
:: I had to remind him every time he picked up the pencil NOT to press hard/excessively...sit comfortably...etc.
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Becky Parker wrote:
| is poetry good to use if I want to also use that copywork for teaching things like sentence structure? |
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I don't use copywork for anything other than penmanship work in the beginning. I might point out a period...or a capital letter, but a beginning writer has to use so much effort to put pencil to paper and copy with perfect execution that I don't add to this lesson in any way. I work on sentence structure with my dictation lessons. For this reason, poetry works well. I can simply say, "copy exactly as you see it - punctuation, capital letters, etc." Now, once the young writer is more proficient and the mechanical act of copying isn't such a task, I mention more grammatical/mechanics through their copywork.
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FAVORITE COPYWORK SOURCES: (note...some of these choices are favorite boy choices)
:: Poetry - my preference for beginning writers!! Like you, I tend to choose the poem the child is memorizing for their poetry. I like to choose seasonal poems and I often choose poetry around a theme - historical or otherwise. It is not unusual for it to take early writers a couple of weeks to neatly copy an entire poem.
:: Bible verses - as an aid to memorization
:: Prayers of the Church & quotes from the saints - particularly when it has to do with a virtue we're working on here.
:: Proverbs and pithy sayings - my son enjoyed this type of copywork.
:: Science quotes or information - like Newton's 3rd laws for example.
:: Sports information - works particularly well for the unmotivated student that loves sports. Find a good sports columnist and have them copy away...or stats work well if you're looking to work on neatness in number formation! It can be a great bridge to more *substantial/intellectual* copywork selections.
:: Dictation selections - I'm not generally a fan of using the dictation selection as the copywork....but....when economy of time is important, and you have a student that really needs the most efficient approach to language arts as possible, I do this. I introduce the dictation selection first and then ask for the selection to be copied. I don't do this until the student is writing with ease and can copy a selection in a shorter time frame.
These are probably ones you already know about so I feel like I'm not being very helpful. In general, my kids enjoy the variety of sources...and I make sure they have BIG plates for the feast! We keep things together by providing a 3 ring binder for copywork; this is helpful because the children know that this is the home for their copywork.
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Mimip
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Becky,
I have been thinking about this since you posted and finally had a few minutes to post. What Jen says above is almost exactly what I do with my 5th grade daughter but I think I was doing too much poetry just like you were saying so I changed it up this past month and now she is copying a selection from something she read that day.
I'll give you Friday's example: She is reading Caddie Woodlawn right now. So right after she narrated for me I asked her to pick her favorite part from the chapters she read that day and copy the sentences. I am using the timer, like Jen suggested, and she just copies until the timer goes off (10 minutes btw). This works much better for her in the long run because she feels like I'm letting her get away with something since she is copying something she already read.
I have a friend who has her son write out sports articles from the newspaper and he doesn't even complain because he gets to read the article as well. 
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Feb 08 2011 at 5:11am | IP Logged
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Mackfam wrote:
:: Timed copywork works better than expecting a completed selection for copywork. The SHORT LESSON format was super important with copywork! We started with 5 minutes - timer and all. We stretched to 10 minutes, and now my 5th grader is up to 15 minutes.
:: I encouraged/enforce S-L-O-W writing for good formation of letters. I learned not to blink an eye if only one word was added to the page for the day.
:: I had to remind him every time he picked up the pencil NOT to press hard/excessively...sit comfortably...etc.
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Thank you for these reminders Jen. The timer was always a big part of copywork for my kids, up until this year. I guess I just forgot about the importance of that when I went with a more workbox approach to some things. Copywork seemed like something they should be able to do independently so I just put it in a workbox which means I had to assign a certain quantity instead of a certain amount of time to work on it. I know going back to the use of a timer will help this ds, who tends to rush things, as well as my 7yo for whom copywork is such a chore.
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Becky Parker
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Mimi,
I like the idea of having a dc copy from something they read that day. I think this would be effective with my dd who is almost 12. She likes to write, so it shouldn't be an issue. Choosing her own passage should also be motivational for her since she really wants to be independent (a good thing at times but it sure causes some consternation at others). I think this might be the right time to start a "common place book" with her. I tried a year ago, but I think she was just too immature to take it seriously, or maybe I just didn't explain my expectations well enough. I can see where she would enjoy this now though.
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Feb 08 2011 at 5:21am | IP Logged
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Jen, this is going a bit off topic, but regarding dictation you said:
Mackfam wrote:
[:: Dictation selections - I'm not generally a fan of using the dictation selection as the copywork....but....when economy of time is important, and you have a student that really needs the most efficient approach to language arts as possible, I do this. I introduce the dictation selection first and then ask for the selection to be copied. I don't do this until the student is writing with ease and can copy a selection in a shorter time frame.
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For some reason, I have been under the impression that dictation exercises should be written as copywork first. I have no idea where I got that idea, but can you elaborate a bit about why you don't like to do that?
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Mackfam
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Becky Parker wrote:
Jen, this is going a bit off topic, but regarding dictation you said:
Mackfam wrote:
[:: Dictation selections - I'm not generally a fan of using the dictation selection as the copywork....but....when economy of time is important, and you have a student that really needs the most efficient approach to language arts as possible, I do this. I introduce the dictation selection first and then ask for the selection to be copied. I don't do this until the student is writing with ease and can copy a selection in a shorter time frame.
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For some reason, I have been under the impression that dictation exercises should be written as copywork first. I have no idea where I got that idea, but can you elaborate a bit about why you don't like to do that? |
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Tying copywork and dictation together is a Ruth Beechick method, and it's fine to do things this way, but it isn't the method CM proposed which is to keep copywork (transcription she called it) and dictation as separate. CM advocated great variety in chosen copywork and dictation selections with all sources coming from quality literature. Over time (and I can say this from an experiential perspective now since I see two of my children demonstrating this) a child begins to emulate the manner and style different author's use to communicate thoughts, the varied forms of expression from literature, and the structure in the child's own writing...it all begins to show up as their own and from my perspective I see the roots of these thoughts. They were planted as tiny seeds from day 1 as the children began to narrate and copy passages from beautiful, rich literature.
I prefer to keep the two separate because generally, the purpose of copywork and dictation is different -
>> copywork being used primarily for penmanship <<
and
>> dictation for spelling and grammar <<
Because of the difference in the two, the selections chosen are often different with the dictation selection I choose being somewhat more challenging since I'm often stretching a child a little in terms of vocabulary and spelling.
I combined the two (dictation and copywork) for the last few months for one child in the following ways and with these reasons:
** Upon entering 5th grade, my son was still not a master of cursive handwriting in terms of formation and fluidity.
** This child struggled with the mechanics of writing at the beginning of the year - this compelled me to get maximum benefit from the writing chosen for the day and NOT overdo writing for this child (which would have led to burnout). (Another approach would have been to simply limit dictations to one/week and use the remaining days for separate copywork. I chose to do 2 dictations/week and use these selections for copywork because this child's spelling needed attention.)
** This child only needs one day to study a dictation lesson in order to write it well the next day. I would not do this with a child that needs to study dictation for a week before they write (which is fine, btw.) That would mean the only copywork they write is the same dictation lesson every day. This would be boring and dry for the child, and would not provide that lavish feast and variety CM thought was important to offer.
** Because of his writing/motor skill challenges, dictation selections were (are) still fairly short.
** I do not ask the child to write dictation selections from memory (which is a characteristic of a more Ruth Beechick approach). I still approach the dictation lesson strictly as a dictation lesson as CM would. After finishing the short lesson and asking if there are any questions, I ask my son to write the passage as copywork for the day.
** On days that he writes his dictation lesson for me as DICTATION, I do not ask for additional copywork.
I have chosen to use this approach for a few months this past year in order to make efficient use of time, and to assist this son with his emerging writing skill. After almost 3 terms (of 8 weeks each) of consistent work, his writing (cursive) has improved and is fluent, and his spelling has greatly improved!   For our 4th and final term we will return to a more CM method with regard to separate and distinct copywork and dictation selections.
Another similar but different (and very helpful) perspective is Lindafay's - Dictation and Copywork are NOT one and the same
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Becky Parker wrote:
Mimi,
I like the idea of having a dc copy from something they read that day. I think this would be effective with my dd who is almost 12. She likes to write, so it shouldn't be an issue. Choosing her own passage should also be motivational for her since she really wants to be independent (a good thing at times but it sure causes some consternation at others). I think this might be the right time to start a "common place book" with her. I tried a year ago, but I think she was just too immature to take it seriously, or maybe I just didn't explain my expectations well enough. I can see where she would enjoy this now though.
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This is a wonderful idea! It sounds like your daughter is ready to begin a commonplace book, Becky, and that she might thrive with that! My dd started one while we still worked through some copywork that I asked of her, but we only did that for one year. She writes exclusively in her commonplace book now, and really enjoys it. It inspired me to start one of my own!
Charlotte Mason, Volume 1, p. 238 wrote:
| Children should transcribe favorite passages.-- A certain sense of possession and delight may be added to this exercise if children are allowed to choose for transcription their favourite verse in one poem and another. This is better than to write a favourite poem, an exercise which stales on the little people before it is finished. But a book of their own, made up of their own chosen verse, should give them pleasure. |
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My dd calls hers a Lovely Thoughts Journal.
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Jen Mackintosh
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Becky Parker
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Jen, thank you so much for this clarification! I feel like a weight has been lifted! I know that sounds silly but I was feeling so burdened by the copywork/dictation issue. I read Ruth Beechick's books when I first started homeschooling 9 years ago. That must be where I got the idea of combining the two. I still like Ruth Beechick's books, but I'm glad to know what CM really recommended. It seems that CM's methodology has been changed a bit here and there to fit other people's theories and I sometimes get confused as to what CM really wrote.
I also enjoyed reading the article you linked to. Her point about the child copying the same piece that is used for dictation leading to boredom really rings a bell here.
I think seperating copywork and dictation will allow me to choose much more interesting, and simple, passages for copywork, therefore making it more enjoyable (hopefully!)
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Thanks, Becky, for starting this topic. It has really been helpful to read the posts, and encouraging, too!
We have been doing dictation and copywork separately here, but usually I have been assigning a "section" of copywork, which has led to frustration sometimes. It was very helpful to read that you assign a period of time--that is definitely an approach I will try to install here.
My sons' writing ability still seems quite variable from day to day, so time makes more sense than length of passage.
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Yes, thank you! Enjoyed reading this as well. Love the clarification on some points. We're still getting the hang of this around here and its great to read how more experienced moms approach each child.
Thanks Jen for mentioning the timer on this. I can see this will benefit my younger two.
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I discovered for 2 of our boys that had horrid handwriting skills they really did well with copy work .
I discovered a catholic handwriting program yrs ago and it is Caanadian also ! it called writing can help .they have a website . all the boys love it both who struggle with writing and those that love writing .
the 2 that have horrid writing . I say this because if they even stop writing for a week the skill level will regress drastically ! That hand writing program offers scroll work , and biblical writing etc.
Now as for copy work for boys I will say I chucked queens homeschool book out the door !
what I can say is with a big thumbs up are Quotes !
Our Boys love Quotes ! I go to brainy quote and look up quotes by all types of inspiring people quotes are usually short but as we know often deep.
How I discovered they really like this is I discovered an old catholic calander at the church from the 80's and it had beautiful photos throughout and quotes by beautiful people like Chief Dan George , Oscar Romero etc. and I really felt they had a connectyion to really good people influencing good moral values.
Not that you need another respource to have for copywork .
As far as poetry I do not force upon a child to copy poems if they are a child who is not into poetry . It is enough they have to read poetry but if they are not into it , having them then yet copy it is tedious for them . sometimes it also may be the poet I have chosen just does not suit that child .when we first homeschooled I remember I had our 2nd ds copying Tennyson ! what was I thinking ! I'd been reading Ambleside and just new to CM teaching . Well he was misreable .It wasn't that it was the subhect of poetry he disliked so much .It was Tennyson .
enter Shel Silverstein .again what was I thinking offering my ds Tennyson ? I think I took the our children need to read mature literature a little to far ! again I feel so blessed I had the gals on the CCM list at the time helping me along
I am a lot more relaxed homeschooler now .
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Becky Parker
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Thanks for bringing this back up! I want to add that I have found that the little sayings from Jenn's Thought for Children are making perfect copywork for this time of year. They are so sweet and so good to remember!
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Topic: copywork buffet
