HWT questions - what to do after finishing the book too quickly?

[Sevilla]

My DS has taken very well to HWT and is halfway done with the orange book...the only problem is that I'm not sure where to go once he's done with it. I'd like him to keep practicing his handwriting, the font of HWT works well for him and is clear and readable. But I'd like more practice for him. Should I start copywork with him instead and wait an additional year to start the 1st grade workbook? Get another program like A Reason for Handwriting to supplement?

 

Thanks for any advice :).

[boscopup]

Once letter formation is learned, I just do copywork. You can make handwriting sheets on the HWT website, I believe. I got the StartWrite program, which also has the font.

[Sevilla]

This is going to sound like a stupid question...but how do I know what kind of copywork he should be doing? Right now he just does thank you notes and a 3 sentence note takes him a good 25 minutes to do properly (that includes erasing incorrectly formed letters and redoing them).

 

Is there a website or book out there that has copywork suggestions for each age/grade?

[boscopup]

Three sentences would be a lot of copywork. My first grader does one sentence, and they're getting to be decent length sentences. He is capable of 2 short sentences. For a younger child, I'd start with one really short sentence per day. An example... The first copywork in WWE1 (meant for first graders) is "Pa owned a pig." You work up from there.

[nicholsonhomeschool]

When my son was in first grade we finished HWT early so I bought the same level of Zaner-Bloser and did that. I didn't want to start cursive until the next year, but it helped me to have a BOOK to put in front of him. The letter formation is slightly different, but I didn't change his writing style. It kept up his practice in an organized way until we were ready to move into cursive. Hope this helps, Lee

[Mommee & Baba]

When my children finish their HWT workbooks, they move on to their Kumon workbook :)

[Researcher]

We also do copywork using the HWT font from the educational fontware program or the practice sheets from the HWT website.

[Joyful]

When my kids finish their handwriting workbooks early, we do some copy work - one or two 5-6 word sentences is plenty of practice for them. I also use HWT's on-line worksheet maker called A Plus to make spelling worksheets for them: http://www.hwtears.com/hwt/online-tools/APLUS. It's free, but they ask you to register to log in. Last week, I made worksheets with names of countries from A to Z, and the kids really liked that.

 

HTH!

[*Jen*]

My K aged son finished the HWT first grade book in December (we skipped the Kindergarten book since he knew all his capital letters and really wanted to learn lower case). Since then we have just been doing copy work on HWT paper.

 

At first we started off with just a few words that had letters that I had to correct him on the day before in some of his other writing. So if he had reversed a b then his words would be - baby, ball, daddy, dinosaur

 

Once he got to the point that he could copy those quickly and correctly we moved on to simple sentences of 3-4 words.

 

Now he is to the point where I let him make up a sentence. So he makes up a silly sentence and I write it for him to copy - Today's sentence was - Why did the chicken go to the bathroom? I'm sure next weeks will be some awful conclusion to his joke.

[duckymama]

In our family we continue with the next book. They have been finishing Cursive Success by the end of 2nd grade. If they need extra practice, we usually do copywork for a little while before starting the next book. Bible verses, poems (one line a day), sentences from books we are reading are the main things we use.

[Classically Minded]

We never used a handwriting curriculum, I simply taught my daughter how to form all her letters (upper and lowercase) and had her do them for a few weeks until she got it right. After she knew how to form her letters, she went right into copywork and now she can copy anything from a book. Other parents have complimented on her handwriting and how neat it is.

 

So, I said all that to say, I don't think you need anything else but to have him do copywork. If he knows how to form his letters he can write sentences.

 

HTH! ;)

[waa510]

My DD finished her HWT books quickly, but I don't think she's ready for the teeny spaced lines in the 2nd grade book so I'm treading water with extra copywork until she gets a bit more proficient at writing smaller. I bought a couple Draw and Write Notebooks used so I've been picking out a couple sentences a day from her favorite books and having her copy them for copywork. I've been trying to use the HWT site for copywork pages but every time I try to print, it freezes my computer and won't work. I may have Dh take a look at it, anyone else have this problem? I'd love to customize some pages for DD and slowly ease her into the 2nd grade lines in a year or so, but the site just won't work for me. :confused:

 

I'd consider using Startwrite, the notebooks, or the pages from HWT (you can even print off a bunch and bind them so he has a 'book' to use). Kumon sounds like a great option, I'll have to look into that one! I'd do copywork, but not 3 sentences at a time (unless he wants to) as I think 2 sentences max. is usually expected at his age/grade level.

[ScoutTN]

We were in the same situation.

I did go ahead and get the yellow book. But we use it only about 2x a week, with short copywork exercises on the other days.

Short = two lines on HWT paper.