Handwriting/Copy work question--Beyond

[amarie]

Hi,

I'm using Beyond with my 7 year old this year, and his fine motor skills are slow-coming. His hand tires easily when cutting and writing and coloring. At the end of LHFHG, his writing had improved a lot, but he still struggled with the correct formation of some of his letters, meaning he wasn't forming all of them correctly. I was reading a different thread about handwriting in kindergarten, and Julie had written back, "having the strokes progressively taught goes a long way for teaching dc proper manuscript. Since writing progressively moves front and center for the subsequent years of learning, one year at least of formal manuscript instruction makes more of an easy go of it for years to come", and I'm wondering if I should just go with the copywork in Beyond, or use another handwriting book (like A Reason For Handwriting A) to review how to form letters and slowly ease into copy work. One of my biggest fears in homeschooling is that I will miss something, or not realize something to be important/need corrected or focused on...especially in these early years. Any thoughts?

Amy

[momtofive]

We are doing Beyond this year, too!!

My daughter is in first grade, and has never done copywork before. We've used a set of handwriting sheets last year to teach formation, and they offered a good start for her. This year (during Beyond), we're using A Reason For Handwriting-Book A, and easing into copywork. I just have her copy as much of the poem as she's comfortable doing. A Reason For Handwriting-Book A seems to be a good place for her right now. It's giving her a good "reminder" on formation from last year, and is giving her a lot of good practice. So I guess we are doing both of the things you mentioned!

Blessings on your school year!

In Christ,

Lisa

[Tree House Academy]

Copywork is not just a "handwriting" thing. We do copywork because it is a model for my son to learn skills he will later use to correctly write of his own work (not hand writing...but creative writing). He is able to check his own work as well which has been instrumental in getting him to recognize mistakes in his writings. We use a cursive handwriting workbook (Pentime 3) for the "handwriting" part.

As far as what I have him copy: He copies two lines a day from whatever poem we are doing. He does this in cursive on wide ruled notebook paper. He is responsible for punctuation, capitalization, and neatness.

Hope this helps.

[MomtoJGJE]

We used Beyond for my now 7 year olds first grade year, in fact we are finishing up this month. At the beginning of the year she was not able to copy very much at all, so I just had her copy her spelling words and do ARFH - A .... now she's doing more copywork and still has about 10 lessons in ARFH. She doesn't copy out of the poetry every time, but I have her copy SOMETHING. Her problem was tracking back and forth between the printed poem and her paper. I had to wait for her eyes to mature a little bit. So having what she was to copy being right there on the page would have made a difference. Like if I had realized this was the issue I could have typed up the poem and skipped lines in between for her to copy in. I didn't realize this until about 3 months ago though. I thought she just wasn't paying attention. luckily I didn't ever even fuss at her and just cut out most of the copywork instead.

We are taking a break from curriculum this fall, so I"m going to have her work on copywork as a part of what we are doing so that she'll be ready for Bigger in January.

[daybreaking]

We did Zaner-Bloser Handwriting K in Kindergarten, ZB 1 in a K-1 year and ZB 2M in 1st. The first year, we just concentrated on letter formation, but since then I've always alternated copywork with handwriting practice. Often I'll do one day of handwriting (one page in ZB), followed by one day of copywork (1-2 sentences at first, but now ds is able to do a stanza from the poem from Beyond). That seems to have worked well with ds, as I love him to do the copywork for all the reasons listed above, but I find the alternating days of handwriting practice really help in keeping his handwriting neat and formed properly.

[creativemommy]

Making the letters correctly is very important. So if you feel as though he needs to review his formation, go through A Reason for Handwriting the first few months of this year. He'll still be able to read & listen to the poem daily. Then when he's ready just begin copying a line of the poem each day.

My son doesn't form all his letters correctly, but it's not because he doesn't know how. He just chooses to make them differently (creatively?) every time. It drives me crazy! I sit with him while he copies 1-2 lines of the poem each day (because he also complains about writing). If he begins to make something incorrectly, I have him erase it and form it the correct way. It takes awhile longer to do it, but I hope (eventually) he will choose to make the letters correctly so I don't have to watch his every stroke! And I hope he'll work up to copying 4 lines at once!!!

[psreit]

Handwriting is a struggle for my dd. Her eyesight and mild CP may have something to do with it. She has O.T. where Handwriting Without Tears is used. DD is doing pretty well with formation. There are certain letters she will forget sometimes. Her problem is mostly getting them properly on the lines. She is working in a HWT workbook this year. Next year. if necessary, when doing copywork in Beyond, I plan to make a model on the HWT double-lined paper that I purchased, since that is what she is using in O.T. I will write the words first and have her copy them on the same paper. I feel that will give her practice in formation and still complete the copywork. Eyesight is also an issue, so I think the larger model will be needed for a while. That is my plan, but it could change, depending how well she does in her writing this year.

[Carrie]

Amy,

The ladies have done a great job of talking through some options with you! From what you've shared about your little honey, I would lean toward doing A Reason for Handwriting A with Beyond. Simply skip the reviews (the first 30 lessons) of the all of the letters given in the beginning of the book and jump right in with the daily lessons on copying words instead. Do it daily 4-5 days a week, and you will finish about 9-12 weeks earlier than you finish Beyond. For at least the last 12-15 weeks be sure to do the poetry copywork as well in preparation for Bigger Hearts. Your sweetie will also be doing copywork of sentences in spelling in Beyond each week, along with writing spelling words daily. There is some copywork in the grammar lessons once weekly as well.

We did this writing path with my 3rd little guy in Beyond last year, and he really made great gains. We will finish Beyond the beginning of this school year and then move into Bigger. By then, he will be ready to ease into more writing. Some little guys just need more time to grow in their motor skills.

Blessings,
Carrie

[amarie]

Carrie--

Thanks so much! Today is our second day of Beyond...I just logged on to ask for advice again but decided to use the search button to see I could find anything first, and I found this--my old post with more advice than I had seen before! Thank you!

I did go ahead and order A Reason for Handwriting A, so glad that I did! I was going to ask if I should do both a review (the first 30 lessons) and also do small parts of the copywork, but after today I realized its just too much for him right now. I really really like your suggestion of just sticking with the lessons from the handwriting book because his little hands were so tired just from writing his spelling words today and yesterday...and I don't want him to get discouraged!

We have so enjoyed our first two days of school! I think my son and I both had tears in our eyes after we finished our Bible verse and sat down to listen to the song on the Steve Greene cd yesterday...thanks for starting out the year with a verse about peace! All the worries of what to do and how to do things and whether or not we could handle a day of school with a toddler under foot vanished...replaced by that wonderfully satisfying feeling of "this is exactly what we're supposed to be doing" !

Thanks again,
Amy

[Carrie]

Amy,

I'm so glad to hear it! We pray you'll have a blessed year!

Blessings,
Carrie