WWE1: accelerate or supplement?

[Ad astra]

My DS loves to practice handwriting. He started with Kumon tracing and mazes books last winter and breezed through HWOT workbooks. He finished the 1st grade book in less than a month in August. (We decided not to continue to HWOT 2nd grade because a third of the book still works on letter formation.) I started a phonics instruction for him in April when he constantly wrote down cvc words on his drawing board on his own and he's now reading easy chapter books with help. After some break, we started WWE 1, FFL 1 and AAS 1 in September and we both love, love, love these programs! The copywork and narration practices in WWE 1 workbook are right at his level and I, as a non-native speaker, greatly appreciate the scripts in these books.

 

However, doing one lesson in WWE 1 a day doesn't seem to challenge him enough while it's sufficient for FFL and AAS. We do both sentences in copywork exercises and I have him write down his answer (one thing he remembers from the narration) and help him spell out complex words in the sentence. Still, it's only 1-2 short sentences a day. He could do 4 pages of the HWOT 1st grade at once with no difficulty and always wanted to do it first thing. But I do not want to skip anything in WWE 1 since his handwriting skills seem to exceed his verbal and comprehension skills. I also have him write down all words and phrases in a AAS lesson on a notebook-sized, lined dry-erase board instead of using tiles and cards because it works better for him this way. And he writes down his answers in the math books, too. We do only reading and hands-on activities for other subjects.  

 

In this case, should I accelerate through WWE 1 at his pace, for example, doing two lessons (copywork + narration) a day, or add a copywork workbook as a supplement if such a thing exists? I looked at A Child's Copybook Reader and liked its format but I'd like to use a secular text. Do you have any recommendation?

 

Thanks in advance for your input.

[lexi]

I would add copy work some other way.

 

I've found that WWE gets increasingly difficult with dictation and longer stories/more narration. I would do that as scheduled because WWE 2 and 3 are both quite a bit more challenging than the previous level.

 

Later in WWE there is dictation and that slowed my kids down.

 

We are in WWE for 3rd grade and it is tough.

 

My dd also has good stamina for writing. I have her copy other things.

 

I'm sure others will chime in with good handwriting ideas. There is Write from History. Not sure if it's secular or not.

 

Or I would use science topics and have him copy things from that and narrate as well.

[EKS]

Agreeing with lexi.  Could you have him copy a sentence or two about the history or science you're studying?  Or if you're doing narrations, have him copy those (this is what I did when my son was in first grade).  

[WahM]

WWE is supposed to be quick and painless for most. If you feel the copywork is on his level why accelerate and get him to spot that will be far above his level and frustrate him? The copywork is not meant to be handwriting practice that's missing the point of it if that's what it's been used as, in my opinion. Also the narrations should be written by you then on day four the child copies the narration you wrote down for the child. The child is not writing their own narrations in level one. There is no need to add more writing, but if you feel the need I agree with the others and pick a quality sentence from the history or science readings.

[Kerileanne99]

We did much the same with WWE1 for handwriting practice...and it does get progressively more difficult and I wanted her to get more out of WWE. It is just one of those programs where it is best digested and kept short and sweet.

As you progress through AAS you will also get more sentences with increasing complexity. We tend to do a full step per day now, a couple of times per week which has 10-15 sentences as well as a writing station.

 

For more writing practice, a couple of the things Alex has enjoyed:

A vocabulary journal where she chooses a word from read alouds, looks up the definition and writes it out with a sentence she creates and a picture.

She also has a science journal and will write in it.

 

Another thing that made sense for her was to learn cursive. We really did not devote a lot of time to this, I just showed her how to form the letters and connect them. We then started doing a few of the AAS words each day in cursive, and she took it from there. Now at least a couple of her AAS sentences will be done in cursive. I also bought the HWOT copy book for cursive in Spanish, but she didn't like the style so we just do a simple Spanish workbook and she writes in Spanish and or cursive.

[Ad astra]

Yes, I see that the narration texts get increasingly longer and more difficult in WWE 1. It does make sense to add more copywork and not to go faster through the program as my DS and I both need to take more time on narrations. Creating our own copywork from the history or science books we're reading is a great idea. I don't know why I couldn't think of it. Think I can write down a few sentences from those texts and have him copy them on the Zaner-Bloser handwriting sheets we have.

 

What I like about WWE 1 is that it goes so well with FFL and AAS and they reinforce each other. When we work on WWE, I try not only to focus on his penmanship but also to review grammar (capitalization, punctuation, pronouns, etc.) and other concepts as it is written in the scripts. At first, I didn't read the instruction carefully and was not aware that *I* was supposed to write down his answer from the narration. I mistakenly asked him to write down one thing he remembers in a complete sentence and helped him spell complex words for the first few weeks. I was wondering about how others deal with spelling in the narration writing exercises, did some research here and then realized I was doing it wrong. At that point, DS insisted to do it on his own on days two and copy my writing on days four.

 

Keeping a vocabulary journal is another wonderful idea for writing practice! DS does need to increase his vocabulary and I think I should teach him how to look up words in a children's dictionary and ask him write down the definition of one word a day or something.

 

My feeling about teaching cursive is mixed. I never learned cursive writing in English properly in my home country. DS has such a nice penmanship in manuscript at this point that I'm not sure if it's the right time to introduce cursive writing to him which may confuse him. Maybe I'm overthinking.