Copy work is a wonderful tool to teach much about language arts. I have used this method, and IT WORKS! I actually did not use copy work pages such as these, but used initially, the K three lined paper and moved to wide rule notebook paper. I wrote every other line for my son to copy. The advantage of using ordinary paper over the "pretty" notebooking/copywork pages is that it makes the practice more like the real world of writing, and I could easily place his work in a notebook, or at one point I even used a regular composition style notebook. Initially I gave my young son one sentence to copy when he was kindergarten age. As he progressed, I increased the sentences to three, then five, and finally moved up to a full page of content on various subjects relating to the things we were studying, good study habits, or Scripture. I
focused on mastery not volume. I did only one nice long sentence adding words that first year. The sentences increased incrementally in difficulty so that the complexity of the sentences increased over time. This gave him the example to copy above his writing line on his level, so that he could carefully reproduce just what I had done. I made sure I read with him the sentences, and we discussed the meaning and its applications. This process of teaching my son sure made my handwriting nicer as I wanted to be a good example! This method has really paid off in many skills for my son!
Here are
free copywork resources from some great websites where you can print out sheets if this is the way you want to go:
http://www.homeschoolnotebooking.com/Free_Pages.htm
http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/manucopywork/
http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/printables/printablescopywork.html
http://www.freelyeducate.com/copywork/
Here's to copywork!
As a sidebar, here is a
website with handwriting instructions and tips
http://www.gmbservices.ca/Jr/Handwriting.htm
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