Our HOmeschooling Journey: Copywork (Part 2)

Last month, I tackled how I instruct my daughter when it comes to her copywork. The instructions seem simple and easy enough but behind the scenes, there is a mother struggling with her own challenges, trying to unlearn what she learned in school, and trying to make sure she delivers the best way to educate her daughter.

I grew up learning through the traditional school. I loved everything I learned from school, I use some of them in my daily life but I know there's always something to improve on with the current system. With regard to teaching children how to write, I'm sure most of us experienced the traditional way where the teacher gives us something to trace, or gives us words or sentences (most of the times it's repeated sentences/phrases, sometimes it's a form of punishment). Nevertheless, we all learned how to write through this process.

There are a few dilemma with this kind of practice though. Before I dive into the negative effects of this kind of copywork activity, let me share first the few good things I got from our old way of teaching writing to kids.

I learned how to work smart. This is the first in my list because after years and years of doing this, I finally had enough, I learned to use an elastic band, tie my ballpens or pencils together (I used up to 3, my classmates used up to 4 pens at a time) and then write using those bound together pens. That way, I'll be writing 3 lines at a time with very minimal effort.

This way, an educator will be able to sift through their students and evaluate their behaviors. They'll find those that would follow instructions to the T (the obedient ones), those that would finish the task the right way (the honest ones), those that would cheat their way through the task (the "work-smart" ones), and those that would just simply finish the task even if their work doesn't look too good.

This is the best way to keep the children busy, but productive. I remember our teachers back in the day would make us write during their meetings. My mom would also do the same when she has too much chores and errands. Grownups back then just wants us to do something even during our idle times.

While these are the good side of the olden way of copywork, like I mentioned earlier, there are some dilemma with this kind of practice.

1. Some children simply needs more guidance when doing their tasks.
2. Constant correct practice instills the habit of excellence. Leaving kids to do their tasks without any supervision may lead them to the habit of completing the task just because they want to be done with it. Gone will be the correct practice.
3. They will not learn to appreciate their handwriting at an early age. It is during this age of technology is the most important time when children should learn to read and write cursive. The only way they'll want to learn is if they learn to love it.
4. Having to write down things repetitively undermines the opportunity for learning. When a kid learns to write, they also learn to read at the same time. Writing, while helps in their reading, also helps with spelling and memorization. All of which are important in establishing comprehension and formulation of opinions as they grow older.

I started teaching my kid how to write as early as 3 years old. If I could turn back time, I would have done it differently. A lot! That is one of the cringey part of our homeschooling journey. Nevertheless, it all turned out fine now. My daughter now has excellent grip on her pencils or any writing or coloring materials, she is now having fun writing stories, and I am now enjoying reading all the awesomely bizarre plots and storylines she comes up with.

We had to first unlearn what we learned from before. That is one of the hardest things in life. I always believe that prevention is better than cure. I try to apply that in almost every aspect of my life. This is one of those times that I had no idea what I was doing, I just know something needed to be done. For those of you who hasn't started teaching their kids how to write yet, I hope these pointers help you in any way.

Pointers to remember for the educator:

Choose a font that you would like to use, and stick to it althroughout the early learning years. I used to not be too particular with the font I use in our activities. I thought she's just going to learn how to write the letters and the words, she's not yet learning how to write cursive so any non-cursive font should do. This year though, we tried the Briem Script font. At first, my daughter had a hard time following the letters, but with careful instructions and close guidance, she finds it is a lot easier to write the way she does now than that of before. It is also most helpful in making kids remember the difference of strokes for the lowercase b and the lowercase d. Furthermore, this font is like an introduction to cursive writing. It makes the transition easy from non-cursive to cursive writing as the child moves along with her learning in handwriting.

Make them write a lot of different things. At first, we stuck to writing my daughter's name. It was easy for her since she doesn't have a second or third name. Then we moved to vocabulary words, especially in our Science lesson, we're studying Marine Biology right now, along with Insect life, and Health. Our Science copywork consists of different sentences from different topics. This way, she encounters a lot of different letters and letter combinations on words and sentences as we move along.

Stick to 5 minutes. Keep it short. My daughter does copywork for all her subjects everyday. There are several reasons to this. I used to joke before that my daughter's attention span only lasts up to 7 minutes. Our new method of copywork requires a lot of observation and focus of attention. The shorter time of copywork allows for more focus, attention to detail as well as careful and excellent execution. Children's hands grow tired easily not because they are just giving us reasons not to do writing, (it may seem that at first), but even grown ups exposed to too much handwriting also gets tired too. 5 minutes of copywork keeps that love and joy in doing the task at hand.
The question remains What if they don't finish the passage they're writing?" Do not require them to finish it in one go. Sometimes our copywork for a subject lasts for a week, sometimes even more. Remember, our target here is that they learn to write as beautiful as they possibly can, learning the strokes for each letters, familiarizing themselves with the curves and lines on each word. We want to go for quality over quantity.

Be there every step of the way, but slowly back off depending on your child's capacity. When we started our copywork for this year, I gave her instructions on how she should take on her lesson in handwriting. On the first few weeks of our schoolyear, I was like a hawk watching over my daughter's shoulders everytime she does her copywork. Our goal was to immediately coach her while she's practicing her handwriting. She needs to develop a muscle memory and we would want her to develop the correct muscle memory when doing her copywork. As she slowly eases into her writing, I slowly step away, randomly checking on her every now and then just to make sure that the habit of excellent execution is being practiced.

Like I mentioned in the first part of my Copywork blog, teaching kids to write properly is crucial on their early years. This is the period when they are developing habits. It is important that as educators, we are equipped with the proper knowledge, unwavering will, and lots of patience in instilling good habits to children. Indeed, it will be challenging, sometimes the will does not always match our energy. Sometimes there will be moments when it's tiring that even us parent educators would just settle something less than their best effort. It happens. And when it does, just let it go, remind yourself that tomorrow is another day. Just keep moving forward, strive for another day of a habit of excellent execution.