Another copywork question. .

[AnneJ]

Do you have the child trace over the selection or have them copy it in the space below?

TIA
Anne

[Kuovonne]

For my daughter, copywork is penmanship practice. Tracing letters didn't help her, so I have her copy in the space below. I used to make copywork sheets with the text on only every other line. Now I am using a new method. Now I print up the words to be copied on a piece of paper and cut the paper into strips. I give her one strip at a time, and she can position it where she wants and move it around when her writing takes up more space than the example or requires going to a second line.

Here is why tracer didn't work for us:

1) She could trace perfectly, several times, yet when it came time to write the letter on her own, she sometimes wouldn't even know where to start.

2) She would focus more on tracing the exact line, versus the shape of the letter. So, her sheets would have weird squiggles where she was trying to get back to the tracer line versus just continuing the shape of the letter.

[Closeacademy]

I use copywork paper.

For K/1st--I use paper with three sets of two lines. I make a letter and she copies below.

By the end of 1st/2nd--I use paper with 2 sets of 3 lines. I write a short sentence in the top set of lines and she copies below.

By the end of 2nd--we have moved to one set of 5-6 lines. I type up on a piece of paper and she copies on to her lined paper.

That is where we are so far.:)

[Narrow Gate Academy]

We only used tracing to help learn how to write each letter individually. Once we started copywork, it has always been written on the line below.

HTH