Avoiding Copywork

Here are ideas that come to mind:

1. How much are you asking him to do in a day’s copywork? Have you upped the length lately? He may be resisting that.

2. Are you picking at more than one thing for each copywork assigment? What I mean is when he’s done and you look it over are to mentioning several mistakes he’s made? That was too discouraging to Makayla so I had to be really careful to only mention 1 thing she could improve and only AFTER I had praise a few things (be it how she kept space between words or a particularly nice letter).

3. Are the copywork selections boring to him? I’m not sure what you use or where you pick your copywork from. Maybe for a change of pace choose a topic he loves and have him copy interesting facts or related poetry. An easy example – if he is into elephants then selections on different days could include:

– Elephants have had many jobs around the world. Hannibal used them in war as he crossed the Alps. They are still used in logging today in Burma. They are also trained to perform in the circus.

– Elephants do not like peanuts, not even at the circus.

– Asian elephants do not run. Running requires lifting all four feet at once. They always keep two feet on the ground at a time when moving.

Here is an interesting poem that could be copied a stanza at a time. http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/elephant_poem.html

Good Luck!