Beyond Little Hearts question

[Kim S]

I am just a bit concerned if my son will be ready for this next year. We will finish LHFHG in about 10 weeks and I will probably not start BLHFHG until fall. Anyway it just seems that my son will not be ready for the writing and spelling part of BLHFHG.
Can someone tell me if it starts out slow or what? He just doesn't write much now. I guess I could work on that over the summer with him and I plan to as we plan to do Math and another LA curriculum through the summer.
I am just a bit concerned. He has had no problems with LHFHG.

[krismoose]

I had the same concerns myself, as my son's fine motor skills have been slow-growing. I've chosen to be very deliberate about making him do increasing amounts of writing over the past few months. He does a short sentence of copywork (he worked up to it), and he was copying a word or two from his phonics lesson each day. To increase that, I recently bought him a "special" phonics workbook at his level and have had him do at a page a day (or just part of it if there are lots of words to write). Most of it has been writing parts of words, some connecting words and pictures, and then at the end of each section there are whole words to write. It's worked great for him because the words are always listed somewhere on the page to copy if he needs to write them. It's given him very bite-sized practice, and he just recently started writing short lists, notes etc. on his own. He's been asking how to spell everything, so as soon as the workbook was finished, I started spelling list 1 and lessons from Beyond, and he's been doing great. I'm probably going to be in the middle of a list when we start Beyond, and I don't know what I'm going to do about that, but I'll deal with that later I'd give him bite-sized copying tasks or a handwriting book over the summer. I would think that you could always wait on the spelling lessons until he's ready, if he's not ready right at the beginning of Beyond. The rest of Beyond does not have a whole lot of regular writing, just copying a sentence now and then. Some people don't do the poem copywork either, or just do a line from the poem, or opt for a handwriting workbook instead. HTH

[creativemommy]

My ds does not enjoy writing but we've "eased" into it while using Beyond this year. There are lots of suggestions for copying the poem, spelling words/sentences, occasionally a sentence in the storytime box to go with the reading for the day, etc.

I knew if I asked my ds to write everything suggested at the beginning of our school year, it would have taken him all day to do it in between writing and having a bad attitude. So we've eased into it. He's gone from copying 1 line of the poem each day to 4 lines now (we're halfway through Beyond). He does copy his spelling words daily now - but we've worked up to this, too.

What's great about Beyond is YOU can pick & choose - it's your child, you know what's best.

[Tree House Academy]

We started with a goal of one sentence a day in copywork. We also do two days of spelling on the white board. Now, at Unit 27, my son can and does copy absolutely every line of every poem for copywork. He has grown so much in his abilities this year with Beyond. I am confident that your dc will too!

[John'smom]

Agreeing with the other ladies. Start small, and just set goals for you dc, so that by the end of the guide they are doing everything that's required. We have loved Beyond this year.

[KimS]

Thanks ladies that makes me feel better. I never thought of shortening things or just doing what we/he could.

[Carrie]

Great advice in this thread, ladies! I agree! The goal is to be doing all of the written work in the guide by the end of the year in preparation for the next guide. The writing can often come on more slowly than the other areas. As it does come on though, it is a joy to behold!

Blessings,
Carrie