Just wanted to add that my girls enjoyed copywork, but I'm not sure we did it consistently enough or directed enough to really say it 'helped' them with writing. It was more an art exercise, decorating the page with pretty handwriting and then perhaps a curle-que.
My almost 9yo ds, on the other hand, HATES copywork. He has tremendous issues with hold a writing utensil. Unless I sat over him saying, "next word" he'd take 30 minutes to copy 1 sentence. I'm not exaggerating. He's a perfectionist, has very nice manuscript writing, and so writes extremely slow...which makes the lesson SO LONG....
I'm trying two things with him over the summer. 1) Teaching him cursive, which so far has been an amazingly positive experience for him. He says his hand doesn't hurt from writing anymore. 2) Letting him choose his copywork more often. Something we did last year that had some positive effect was homemade 'story starters' where I would begin some fantasy episode full of swords and knights and squishy things that boys like, then ask him to provide the next part. I recorded it, then copied out a couple of his sentences with proper grammar/spelling/handwriting. He didn't seem so bothered knowing he was copying his own words. It took more of my time, but I think it was our best copywork experience. He still balked if I tried to sneak in more than 3 sentences at a time, but he proudly showed Daddy when he got home from work. :001_smile: