A little background - Dd6.5 did the prek HWT book when she was 3 years old (because she wanted to learn, it wasn't really school at that point). Then for Kindergarten we did the K book so she finally learned all the lower case letters when she was 5 or 5.5 years old. This year we are doing a purchased copywork book in the HWT font with line by line models, about 5-10 min per day 4x per week.
First problem - She will write the lower case letters for her copywork but all other writing she does, which is mostly non-school related, is in all capitals. She is able to write in lowercase without a model, minus a few occasional reversals, but it is WAY slower for her so maybe more frustrating?
Second problem - There is no top line in the HWT system so she is either asking me 'where do I start?' for capitals and the lower case letters with ascenders (b,d,f,h,l...) or she just guesses and makes a HUGE line down. Even she reaslizes it looks silly and will sometimes erase half the line!
Third problem - She pushes down on her pencil sooooo hard. I think it makes her hand get tired faster and seems to keep her from having a smoother flow to her lines and curves. Plus she has a hard time erasing such dark lines when she makes a mistake.
She is my first child and I'm not sure what to do differently to help her with this. Copywork is the only subject she really dislikes and I would like that to change a bit, along with her handwriting improving. Would it be a big deal to switch fonts for her copywork models so that they would come with a top line? (I have to buy a new book for this year anyway.) Would it help or hurt to just start cursive? Would something like italics be a better fit? Is it possible she just isn't comfortable with the individual letters yet and I need to go back and practice a a a a a a, b b b b b b, ... ect.? How much of this is normal 6 year old stuff that she will grow out of in a year or two?
