Speed of copywork: What is "normal" for a 6yo?

[nature girl]

I've mentioned elsewhere that my DD hates copywork, it's just so tedious for her that after a few words she's just done. It seems like she's only able to hold one letter at a time in her head while she copies, so for a 5 letter word she'd need to look up and down 5 times while writing.

 

Her writing is sloppy, but she doesn't have a difficult time forming the letters, she's able to write reasonably fast when she wants to, so I don't think it's that she can't remember what comes next because her brain is distracted by the act of forming letters. My guess is that it's a working memory issue (she has ADHD) but I'd like to hear what is "normal" for 6-year-olds. Can they typically hold the spelling of a shorter word in their mind while copying? How many letters at a time can they remember?

[EKS]

I found that it made it easer to make worksheets where what was to be copied was directly above the place to do the copying.  I bought something that worked with my word processor to do this, but they have worksheet generators online as well.

[three4me]

I hav no idea what's normal, but for my 5yo I hand write his copy work in his notebook and skip a line between each line. So when he's writing he keeps his eye right on his paper and is just looking at the line directly above where he is writing. Does that make sense? So it looks kind of like this to begin with:

 

My writing: All things bright and beautiful

(Blank line)

My writing: All creatures great and small

(Blank line)

My writing: All things wise and wonderful

(Blank line)

My writing: The Lord God made them all

(Blank line)

 

Then he does the copy work for each line on the blank line directly under my writing.

[nature girl]

I found that it made it easer to make worksheets where what was to be copied was directly above the place to do the copying.  I bought something that worked with my word processor to do this, but they have worksheet generators online as well.

 

I'll have to look for the worksheets, thanks. Maybe it would help.

 

 

We used and still use Explode the Code. This involves a lot of copying and variations of copying. However, the word to be copied is right there on the paper. When you ask how many letters at the time they can remember, I'm curious where the word your DD is supposed to copy is located — on a whiteboard or something? 

 

Typically it's been copying from a book, or something I've written, to a sheet of paper, so it's right next to her (but not on the same page.)

[nature girl]

Thanks three4me and Dialectica, that makes sense, I'm going to try that tomorrow to see if it makes a difference. So you're saying when the words were printed directly above they were able to copy without stopping after each letter to find the next?

 

I've been trying to figure out whether she has working memory issues (I've been posting on the LC board about it) and this was what I was using as evidence...So the real purpose of this post wasn't so much trying to make copywork easier for her, but trying to figure out how unusual it is, and the extent of her issues.

[redsquirrel]

It can be pretty slow, lol. My youngest is now a 5th grader, but he was painfully slow when he was younger.  He doesn't have ADD, so that is a huge difference. I also would write on the paper and have him copy directly below at that age.  Another 2 things were:

 

1. I encouraged him to not take 'breaks' in the middle of a word. It got him off track and he would get 'lost' in the middle of a word. I would tell him if he wanted to take a break, that was fine, but to do it between words.  Keep going while you are writing a single word!  This meant I had to be right there. If I saw that daydreaming look, or he would start to doodle, I would have to remind him to get back on track, finish the word. Once it is done, put your pencil down, stretch, etc. But keep going to the end of the word. (I have the same rule for math as well. Take a break or daydream between problems, not in the middle of one. It's too difficult to come back to it at that age, and you have to start all over again)

 

and

 

2. Try saying and spelling the words out loud while or before writing them down. For some kids, it helps them remember it a little longer when they are writing. It is adding another component to the process. I had one friend who would have her kids write it in the air, while saying it first, to use large muscle group before the small muscle groups of writing. Her kids did have some diagnosed learning problems and that was suggested. It did help

[Tsuga]

Really slow when not motivated. If your goal is to improve intrinsic motivation it might be slow. If you want them to practice going faster, a small bribe at the end of each line might help (like an M&M in a box they can open).

[nature girl]

IWe then play hangman using the same words he recently learned. Spelling really sinks in that way.

 

Ooh, I love that idea!

[Cake and Pi]

I hav no idea what's normal, but for my 5yo I hand write his copy work in his notebook and skip a line between each line. So when he's writing he keeps his eye right on his paper and is just looking at the line directly above where he is writing. Does that make sense? So it looks kind of like this to begin with:

 

My writing: All things bright and beautiful

(Blank line)

My writing: All creatures great and small

(Blank line)

My writing: All things wise and wonderful

(Blank line)

My writing: The Lord God made them all

(Blank line)

 

Then he does the copy work for each line on the blank line directly under my writing.

 

^^ That's exactly what I used to do for my oldest when he was 6yo.  He could handle maybe 5-6 word sentences, and it took him maybe 7-10 minutes to write it all.  He had a fine motor delay, though.  He had to focus very hard on forming the letters, so he wasn't able to concentrate on holding several letters in his mind at a time and had to look back and forth between the model and his work very frequently.  Now at 7yo, almost 8yo, he is able to write at about the same level as DS#2 who is 6yo.

 

My current 6yo can copy about 10-12 words before he starts to complain.  It takes him roughly 5-7 minutes to do that.  He does not require that I write every other line.  I can write the whole sentence on the top 3ish lines of his paper, and then he copies the whole sentence on the 3ish lines below those.  I *think* his fine motor and writing skills are pretty typical for his age.

 

On the other hand, when I was a kid in public school and was required to write the questions out of the texts before writing my answers, I also did what you describe your DD doing, and it was definitely NOT a fine motor thing.  It was a memory thing (and I don't have ADHD).  I remember having to look back to the word I was copying after every. single. letter. even in 3rd grade.  That's when I started laying my notebook page over the book and tracing the questions.  I don't know how you could best go about helping a kid with memory issues like that, but I eventually learned to work around the problem on my own and am now a fully functional adult (lol).  

 

I imagine there are professionals who can help and exercises etc. to improve such memory issues faster than may happen naturally.  For now it may well be in the range of normal, but if the problem persists, I would look into possible therapies.  That's what I wish my parents would have done, anyway.

[Cosmos]

Thanks three4me and Dialectica, that makes sense, I'm going to try that tomorrow to see if it makes a difference. So you're saying when the words were printed directly above they were able to copy without stopping after each letter to find the next?

 

I've been trying to figure out whether she has working memory issues (I've been posting on the LC board about it) and this was what I was using as evidence...So the real purpose of this post wasn't so much trying to make copywork easier for her, but trying to figure out how unusual it is, and the extent of her issues.

 

Maybe she thinks she is supposed to check each letter one at at time. Are you giving her words that she already knows how to spell?

 

Maybe try showing her how to say a word as she writes it. It's sort of the reverse of sounding it out when learning to read. Instead of putting the sounds together to make a whole word, you slow the word down to separate the sounds. Say "c . . . . a  . . . .t" saying each sound as you write the corresponding letter. Then ask her to do it. You could make it a game to do together instead of copywork for a few days. Once she gets good at it, see if she can apply the skill while doing copywork.

[UnlikelyHomeschoolingMama]

My six year old DS hates everything about writing, coloring, etc.  So he is also quite slow.  I have a hard time because at 6, my DD was writing paragraphs at a time on her own for FUN!  She is just a natural writer and artist.  For him, One sentence is normally enough for "copy work"...sometimes he'll do two.  But then I think that he writes words for phonics, numbers for math, and fills out his calendar notebook every day and I know he is writing enough for a kinder.  His stamina is slowly increasing, but his handwriting has come LIGHT YEARS from where it was at the beginning of the year.  At this point I'm OK with that.  

 

It'll get better.  Just keep at it and try different strategies until you find out what works.  I always tell him two or three letters and he looks at them sometimes.  Sometimes I say the word and he knows how to spell it so he just writes it.  I haven't yet made him simply "copy" without verbal help from me.  He is very auditory and not as visual.  

 

Good luck!!

[SilverMoon]

I'd definitely get the words onto the actual paper she's writing on. Mine didn't copy out of a book until closer to third grade.

 

Next I'd reduce the assignment until it's a piece she can do well. Even if it's just "Mat sat on Sam." When that size of an assignment is nearly automatic start gently increasing the size and complexity to stretch her endurance and skill.

[redsquirrel]

I hav no idea what's normal, but for my 5yo I hand write his copy work in his notebook and skip a line between each line. So when he's writing he keeps his eye right on his paper and is just looking at the line directly above where he is writing. Does that make sense? So it looks kind of like this to begin with:

 

My writing: All things bright and beautiful

(Blank line)

My writing: All creatures great and small

(Blank line)

My writing: All things wise and wonderful

(Blank line)

My writing: The Lord God made them all

(Blank line)

 

Then he does the copy work for each line on the blank line directly under my writing.

 

Is your 5 year old able to do all that copy work in one sitting?

[MerryAtHope]

Honestly, I don't think a lot of copywork is worthwhile at age 6, unless she is an early writer/speller who is anxious to learn more. As you said, she doesn't know how to spell the words so she has to copy letter by letter. This is not helping her learn how to spell the word. She is copying letters like she would copy a phone number--one character at a time, instead of realizing that some letters work together as phonograms (like the SH or EE in "sheep.") I find that until a student has a strong grasp of how the phonograms are working in a word, the exercise is taxing and not very fruitful. 

 

I'd work on handwriting, learning how certain words work (build incrementally from writing one sound at a time to writing a very short, blended word--can she hold "at" in her mind and write it without looking back at each letter? and slowly building up in very doable steps.) The copywork in most handwriting books, while not always very inspiring, is typically more doable and appropriate for kids at this stage of writing. 

 

We used AAS and found that the dictations helped my kids to gradually increase their working memory and their ability to hold more parts in their minds (and eventually more and more words). 

[Jess4879]

I second the recommendation for ETC.  We don't start copywork selections until we have finished the first couple of ETC books.  Basically, I wait to start copywork until writing each letter is automatic, however long that takes.  If they are still concentrating on how to form each letter, a sentence can be very intimidating. 

[ExcitedMama]

DS is newly 6 and the only oral copywork he does is for AAS. They have short phrases and sentences that he writes out. He's getting better about keeping it all in his head while he's writing but he can get distracted if he is working on spelling one of the words right and then forget the rest. I have him practice saying the whole thing out loud before he starts writing which helps.

[Stellalarella]

Your short term memory only has so many "slots."  If you are having to fill up your short term memory with how to form a letter correctly,  you won't have enough slots left in your working memory to remember the next letters, or the whole word, or have the space to think about how to spell a word, much less an entire sentence from something you saw up on a chalkboard or up on another page.   

 

There are a lot of skills that have to get to "automatic" in order to do copywork.  

 

If a kid can't read well enough to know the word and remember it, she will have to see a word, take it apart into letters, remember the letters, know how to form the letters--and all of that takes a lot of visual back and forth between her paper/slate/chalkboard and where ever the original copywork is printed.  Just think about that. Another scenario is that she will read the copywork, and then be trying to do spelling and correct letter formation at the same time OR she will have to know that she needs to look back up at the words to be copied because she doesn't actually know how to spell them.  

 

Then, at the end of all that, she needs to remember to look back over the work that was to be copied and use skill to check her work against it.

 

Copywork is complicated for the beginner.  

 

 

[Guest]

My oldest was still tracing words at six. He was NOT ready for copywork, really at all, until he was almost 8.

[nature girl]

Thank you so much for all of the ideas, and for making me feel better about all this. I started copywork this year because that's what WTM recommends, but stopped after Anna started throwing herself on the floor whenever I suggested it.  :svengo: I guess it was too soon...But get this, I gave her a sheet today with the writing area just below the lines to be copied, and she ZOOMED through it. (Well, not zoomed exactly, but she copied a 10 word phrase, "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small," in under two minutes. Which is at least twice as fast as she was able to do previously.) I asked how she did it, and she said she was still looking at each letter one at a time, but that she wasn't looking at her writing, just at the text to be copied. So she's still not using her working memory or knowledge of phonics (she knows the poem, and the spelling of almost all the words, but didn't use that knowledge...), but the process was much less painful and she didn't complain at all.

 

Her handwriting was actually reasonably neat, considering she wasn't looking at her hand, although she strayed way off the line while writing. So will this copywork help improve her handwriting automaticity, or should we work on handwriting separately? (I'll admit, I've kind of slacked on penmanship, because she hated it so much. It's a definite weakness. My husband's viewpoint has always been, Will she even NEED handwriting in the future? His hw is awful, probably less legible than hers, ha, so that's where he's coming from, but maybe he does have a point.)

 

I'm going to try more of the suggestions here. I'm assuming as her ability to spell improves, copying will become less and less of an issue and she'll be able to think of the words as a whole rather than looking at the letters. I'm strongly considering getting Quiver of Arrows in the next few months, and using their copywork and French Dictation (which I guess is like a baby step toward the oral copywork in AAS?) to help all of this gel. But I don't feel quite as bad about all this as I did yesterday.

[KSinNS]

My kids do a fair bit of copybook at that age (they aren't ready for independent writing usually). Slow is the norm. Definitely start with what she can do well and easily even if it is 2-3 words (or letters), and then gradually increase length. With the ADD, if she's like mine, there will be good days and bad days. The focus should be her best work, not the length, and it's okay to stop in the middle and go back the next day. For my kids at that age, a sentence might take a whole week. Printing the model above is certainly helpful. Also, it's much easier if its something she can read (not sure if reading is an issue, but it is for my kids at that age). Reversals are normal (I hope) even if they are copying. Mine typically reverse until age 8 or so, even with a model. Mark capitals and punctuation with a highlighter. The French dictation thing is somewhat helpful, but my kids really couldn't do it until age 7 or 8, and we did that from the Wand, which is for less advanced readers. With Miss T we would practice all the words ahead many times so she could remember them. D usually remembers the spelling from doing the copy the day before, but I need to remind him constantly about caps vs. lower case. Charlotte Mason actually advised copying only until age 10 or so, and then adding in dictation at that time-with the plan that the child would study the dictation ahead. 

 

Quick plug for HWOT if you need a handwriting program (you may not). It also focusses on quality rather than quantity, which is great for the kid with ADD. You can do a page in less than 5 minutes, and if you do a tiny bit daily, you'll get done comfortably in a year. I also use the chalk boards and such when needed for multi sensory practice-which helps to break it up. 

[Stellalarella]

Have a kid master one-to-one correspondence.  (lay out a series of something like Legos and then see if the child can repeat the sequence)

 

Have a kid master letter formations.

 

Then work on words.

 

Then work on spacing between two words.

 

Then learn to spell words by dictation.

 

Then learn to spell two words put together--     sad cat

 

Start to add in sentences for copywork using letters the kids are proficient at forming and some words that they can encode (spell).  The cat sat on the mat. 

 

Use simple sentences to learn the basics of how every sentence works--All sentences begin with a capital letter and end with a punctuation mark.  This phrase from First Language Lessons is a mantra at our house by now.   :)  When the kiddo finishes a sentence lacking one of those essentials, I will start to say, "All..s..." and the kid is cued to look for those two important things--the capital and the punctuation.  

 

Once a kid can do those things reasonably well,  then that seems a good time to move on to copying sentences that are  more challenging.  At this point, one can begin to introduce simple grammar concepts,  such as how to use commas.  Ann, come to me.  I have a bat, a ball, and a net.  

 

The way I see copywork, the point of it is to allow a little kid a way to practice  basic grammar-writing-punctuation skills with a lot of hand holding.  

 

If I want the littler kids to enjoy the feel of good language, I will have them memorize a lovely poem or sentence to say out loud; I don't find it helps them much to copy a sentence until they can read it and spell most of the words independently.  

 

I think handwriting is very important.  This tactile act of putting letters on paper is just great for the brain.  Learning to hold a pencil and use well it is a fabulous skill.  There are so many nerves in the tips of the fingers--more so than just about anywhere else in the body.   Those nerves can tell the brain a lot.  Yay for handwriting, as far as I am concerned.   :)

 

Here are some pro-handwriting links:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/16/cognitive-benefits-handwriting-decline-typing

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001475_2.html

 

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00567/full

 

http://www.donpotter.net/education_pages/11gth.html

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/

 

http://www.ldonline.org/spearswerling/The_Importance_of_Teaching_Handwriting

 

I have loved using Handwriting Without Tears products and teaching techniques with my kids.  The program was designed by an OT; the program lays out how to teach a good pencil grip by beginning with small items--pieces of chalk, crayon and short pencils.

 

The program emphasizes learning the letter strokes by using  large hand motions--air writing.  Making big letters in the air is proven to help kids learn to form the letters properly.  We say specific prompts in forming the letters.   Where do you start your letters?  At the top.  Let's make a "d":  magic c, up like a helicopter and back down.  HWT made me a better teacher of my children because of the scripted prompts for letter formation.

 

HWT also emphasizes quality over quantify, which I found valuable.  We weren't going to make 10 letters, just 4 really nice ones.  The program also promotes self-checking by always asking the student to compare one letter with the original.  

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2016 by Stellalarella