Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

This topic has 7 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 13 years ago by Julie.

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

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May 16, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Julie
Participant
I’ve read Sonya’s book Hearing and Reading, Telling and Writing and I love it!
I’m trying to figure out what I need to do for 2nd grade. My dd 6 (soon to be 7) will be in 2nd grade next fall and she is doing very well with copywork.
In HRTW, it talks about that children of 7 or 8 can begin transcription in their copywork lessons. That a child looks at a word until he can see it in his mind’s eye, then writes it from memory.
My question is, does a child start out doing transcription of a single word, then progress to sentences? I’m probably making this harder than it is.
Thanks for the help
May 16, 2012 at 9:23 pm
Sonya Shafer
Moderator
What you can do is continue with copywork passages that give great ideas, but challenge her to go word by word instead of letter by letter as she copies the sentence or passage. Eventually she will progress to looking at and writing two words at a time, then three words at a time, etc. as she copies the beautiful passages you give her.
May 16, 2012 at 9:53 pm
suzukimom
Participant
I know of one mom that has the copywork on a different table than the child is working – so they have to get up and look at the next word…. just to help make them do it word for word instead of letter by letter….
May 17, 2012 at 12:54 am
missceegee
Participant
jpkr – no advice to add, but I L-O-V-E your sweet gravatar image. Baby feet are so adorable. My littlest’s feet are soon to outgrow that sweet stage.
Christie
May 17, 2012 at 1:36 am
my3boys
Participant
What Sonya has described is exactly what my 9yo ds has done/does and it has worked like a charm. He is my CM poster child and has *almost* textbook results with how a child should develop using the CM method of LA. I have no doubt that when he turns 10 he will be ready for Spelling Wisdom and I’m very excited for him.
Copywork, copywork, copywork.
May 17, 2012 at 2:32 am
Julie
Participant
Thanks for the help. So she continues to look at the whole passage, but tries to copy it word by word. I just want to make sure I’m doing this right.
@missceegee thx for the compliment. And yes, my youngest is almost past the baby feet too.
May 17, 2012 at 3:24 am
suzukimom
Participant
When starting copywork… some kids will take a word – say “like” and write it like this…..
look at the word…. ok, the first letter is “l” – writes the l… looks at the word… next letter is “i” – writes the i… looks at the word… next letter is “k”… writes the k. looks at the word – next letter is “e”… writes the e… (and this is assuming a child that is attending and focusing… so there isn’t any “looks around the room to see what everyone is doing” in the middle of the word – but of course that is common too.
what you want to move to (if your child does that)… is looking at the word “like” once, and then writing the word “like”. then looking at the next word. Of course, it is even better if they get to the point of looking at the passage, and writing whole phrases (or several words) correctly without looking at each word – that would be what you would eventually want (I think) – better preperation for studied dictation…

May 17, 2012 at 3:34 am
Julie
Participant
Thanks suzukimom for the explanation that really helped! My dd is looking at the word then writing it, but she’s not doing 2 words at a time. I know she is definantly past the letter by letter stage.