6yo struggling to do copywork

[diaperjoys]

My 6yo (almost 7) is really having trouble doing copywork. He's in 1st grade, and we use WWE, and it is very, very hard thing for him to keep track of what letter he is on as he is copying the sentences. Writing a sentence from the board is almost impossible. He can copy if I write the sentence out completely & he writes in the same size font directly beneath my letters - but even then it is not unusual to have him miss letters.

 

Why is this so difficult for him? He's a very smart little boy, but a little slowish learning to read. His eye doctor gave him a pair of glasses to use while reading, but he doesn't like the way he feels when he wears them.

 

Any ideas??

[mrs.m]

I would just give it some time. At this point they don't have the spelling to hold the entire word in their head and spell it, so they have to copy letter by letter.

 

Maybe have him trace it until he is ready to copy?

[Ellie]

I would just give it some time. At this point they don't have the spelling to hold the entire word in their head and spell it, so they have to copy letter by letter.

 

Maybe have him trace it until he is ready to copy?

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

[WishboneDawn]

I would just give it some time. At this point they don't have the spelling to hold the entire word in their head and spell it, so they have to copy letter by letter.

 

Maybe have him trace it until he is ready to copy?

 

:iagree: It's so easy to skip something when you're doing it that way.

 

Just sit right with him and as soon as you notice him about to miss a letter, gently correct him. You could also use an index card that he could slide along to just reveal the letter or word he's working on to make the sentence easier to read and track. My daughter used to trace sentences by just putting onion paper on top of the words she was tracing (we were unschooling - this was her own invention) and it worked really well for her.

 

It's developmental most likely and he'll catch on

[StartingOver]

All my boys were slower to write. We did tracing for copywork for a long time starting at 5, easing into it. My son now at 6.4 after a year of tracing copywork is finally writing on his own.

 

I have one son that I just taught to type after banging our heads against the wall forever. He is 21, and still can't write worth a toot. But he loves to write and types out beautiful poetry and wonderful stories. ;-) I will always scribe for a child to avoid frustration.

[Spryte]

My guy was like this in first, too. I used an online worksheet generator in the font we were using and first made copy work for him to trace.

 

Then made worksheets with the copy work skipping every other line so he only had to move his eyes up one line.

 

There's a great free site out there somewhere, I can try to find it for you, if you'd like. I don't have the same computer, so it's not bookmarked and I'll have to search a bit.

 

I never put the copy work up on a board, but I don't think he would have managed that well at all.

[PeterPan]

Sometimes when a regular eye doc gives reading glasses it's your big clue to head to a developmental optometrist. In this case, that's what I would do. COVD is where you find them.

[wapiti]

:iagree: www.covd.org

[Tanikit]

How is the copywork being presented to him - apparently at young ages (even as far as up to grade 3 level) it can be very difficult for children to copy from a board or anything that is not directly in front of them - that is why at kindergarten level they should be given the entire alphabet on a strip on their desks (or so I read) when free writing so they can just find the letter and copy it.

 

Perhaps you should try making your own worksheets - this is what I do for my DD - in big handwriting font where she just copies it below what I have typed. If this does not improve as he ages then you would need to see a specialist, but at his age it is still developmentally normal.

[Tracy]

I don't think that copywork is appropriate for a child that cannot read what they are writing. The only thing he is getting out of it is better fine motor skills, and there are other more pleasant ways to do that. He would be better off copying individual letters and spending some time coloring and playing with play-dough.

[ErinE]

Is this his first year doing copywork? The combination of letter tracking and writing words may be too much. For dd's first year, I started writing out the sentences using orange highlighter so she could trace the letters. All of her copywork was tracing for the month or so. When she was comfortable writing a 5-6 word sentences, I gradually added in copywork written below 2x per week. Once she was doing well with these exercises, I then made copywork written below 4x a week. By the end of the year, she was writing all her sentences without tracing.

[MerryAtHope]

I don't think that copywork is appropriate for a child that cannot read what they are writing. The only thing he is getting out of it is better fine motor skills, and there are other more pleasant ways to do that. He would be better off copying individual letters and spending some time coloring and playing with play-dough.

 

:iagree:

 

Sometimes when a regular eye doc gives reading glasses it's your big clue to head to a developmental optometrist. In this case, that's what I would do. COVD is where you find them.

 

:iagree: www.covd.org

 

:iagree:

 

Copywork is much harder than it looks. Read my "mistake #2" in this blog post, but it's akin to copying a foreign language for a child, and if he is still working on letter formation, it's akin to copying foreign characters. He needs to not only be able to form the letters and read the words fluently, but he needs to understand the spelling concepts--how are the letters working together to form one sound. When he can hold a syllable in his mind or a whole word and easily know how to write it without looking letter by letter, copywork will be beneficial. If he is looking letter by letter, he's not learning spelling and it's not helping him with reading. In some cases, it will reinforce in the child's mind that letters in words are arbitrary, and it can be detrimental.

 

Tracing with a pen or pencil is not necessarily a good idea either (finger-tracing is much better)--check out this video that shows how it can interfere with learning fluidity in writing.

 

I would focus on handwriting and reading first, spelling when he is ready, and then later copywork. Merry :-)

[diaperjoys]

Thank you for all the help. I'll drop WWE for the present, and also look into getting a better evaluation of his vision. This is a really smart little boy, and it doesn't make sense to me that his 4yo sister is light years ahead of him in copywork ability, and rapidly overtaking his reading skills.

 

Thank you.

[ErinE]

Thank you for all the help. I'll drop WWE for the present, and also look into getting a better evaluation of his vision. This is a really smart little boy, and it doesn't make sense to me that his 4yo sister is light years ahead of him in copywork ability, and rapidly overtaking his reading skills.

 

Thank you.

 

Definitely get his vision checked out, but do keep in mind that girls can often do fine motor skills like copywork at a younger age than boys. When ds was my dd's age, getting him to write one word was torture, let alone several. My dd is more than happy to write multiple sentences and will create books on her own time.