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How "good" does a child's HW need to be before beginning copywork? Thanks!

I can't give you a quantifiable answer but I do know that my ds's handwriting improved dramatically from doing just copywork this past year.
He had been through A Reason for Handwriting book A the previous year and could form letters legibly but not neatly. Consistent copywork, first in small amounts then gradually adding more, has helped him a lot.
HTH!

My youngest two did copywork before they could read and before they had printing fully mastered for sure. They are by far the best spellers for their age. I think the act of copywork is a great opportunity for teaching printing as well as reading and spelling.

Copywork improved my ds's handwriting greatly! I would say it's important they know how to properly form each letter first, but as far as the actual "neatness" of the way it looks, that only continues to improve with copywork. Here's a post where I took pics of my ds's progressive improvement in handwriting. (I took them to remind me of this process when I get to teaching it to my youngest ds, as it was a process I'd forgotten between teaching it to my oldest, and then to my middle ds. ):
Pics of progression of writing:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5605&p=41147#p41147

I also had to help my ds "see" the lines better, as well as how to use proper spacing.
Pics of hi-lighting Riley’s lines for HW:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4618&p=34014

I hope something here helps!
In Christ,
Julie