Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: copywork, cursive, dictation, spelling, spelling wisdom

This topic has 34 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 8 months ago by Sonya Shafer.

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August 7, 2012 at 7:25 pm
LindseyD
Participant
I am trying Spelling Wisdom, book 1 with my ds 8.5. Since I am a first-time user, I have a few questions:
1. Do you use one lesson per week?
2. Do you also include extra copywork/handwriting practice, or do you have the child copy the sentence from the lesson as his/her copywork?
3. Ds writes very well in cursive, and I think it’s time to transition to notebook paper. Do you think it’s a good idea to have him do the prepared dictation on notebook paper or should I continue to use the lined paper?
This topic has been the most confusing for me. I can’t figure out how to keep his cursive well practiced and beautiful with only one sentence per week unless I add extra handwriting practice. Even then, I don’t know what to use. I checked out CurrClick, and was overwhelmed at the amount of copywork resources. Plus, unless I can’t figure it out, I don’t see where on CurrClick you can view the inside of a resource prior to purchasing.
Help!
Blessings,
Lindsey
August 7, 2012 at 7:34 pm
Tia
Participant
I have the same questions about Spelling Wisdom! My dd is 8 1/2 and we are going to try Spelling Wisdom this year. As far as copywork, I do have a thought.
We use a Poetry book every year for her copywork from the Poetry For Young People Series. This year we are using Lewis Carroll’s book. In the past, we’ve done Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. She chooses a poem out of the book and copies it onto lined paper in a notebook. She loves this and cherishes the notebooks. You could do the same for cursive. It’s nice because I feel as though it is handwriting, spelling practice, and poetry all in one 10 minute per day sitting.
ETA: I was thinking one lesson per week on SW…have her copy the phrase once per day for three days, then “test” her one the 4th day. Then her copywork would be separate (done as explained above.) But I’ll be interested to see how others have used it…
August 7, 2012 at 7:40 pm
LindseyD
Participant
Tia,
I’m glad I’m not the only one! I like your idea about the poetry and have thought of that.
Another thing I should have added to my original post is that I plan to have him do a journaling prompt once per week in a Mead composition notebook where half the page is blank and half the page is lined. So that would count as one day of handwriting practice, and of course I would ask him to try his best on spelling and punctuation, but I would not grade him on his writings.
August 7, 2012 at 8:20 pm
Tia
Participant
Ooh! That’s a great idea!! I’m working on my schedule today and I’m quickly running out of hours…so many good things to teach, so little time…*sigh*
My oldest two are about the same age as your two I think? I’d love to see your plan! Is it on your blog?
August 7, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Charlene
Participant
I’m sure you already know this but your talking about two different skills – copywork and dictation. Each has it’s own seperate goal. I’m sure you can use Spelling Wisdom for copywork however if you plan on using them later for dictation then Sonya says ” the joy of discovery would be gone since they would have already “been there done that” with these selections.” Dictation’s main focus is correct spelling. I’d encourage you to watch the video for an excellent walkthrough on how to use SW and read through the comment section on the Spelling Wisdom page.
For cursive copywork have you already used the Hymns In Prose Copybooks?
HTH, Charlene
August 7, 2012 at 9:30 pm
JennNC
Participant
Agreeing with Charlene on this…
copywork and dictation. Each has it’s own seperate goal. I’m sure you can use Spelling Wisdom for copywork however if you plan on using them later for dictation then Sonya says ” the joy of discovery would be gone since they would have already “been there done that” with these selections.”
I get the most happy participation with copywork when the child has a say in what they copy (within specified parameters, of course). They love to help with the choosing process! It really helps to take the chore out of it. Linda Johnson on Charlotte Mason Help has a couple of really helpful articles on keeping the joy in copywork.
Prepared dictation should be totally separate. I wouldn’t do it more than once a week at that age, if at all. Spelling Wisdom is great! We love it.
~ Jenn
August 8, 2012 at 12:14 am
LindseyD
Participant
I understand that they’re two different skills and subjects, and I’m not trying to combine them at all. I am trying to find a balance between too much repetition and not enough practice. Though ds has beautiful cursive, he is still young enough that he tires after too long of a passage or too much writing, so I don’t want to have him practicing the prepared dictation then doing more handwriting on top of that. That’s why I asked the question. I am not really planning to have him do much *copywork* this year. More than anything, I just want to give him more practice and confidence in the cursive skills he has built so that we are working towards mastery and endurance to write longer passages.
I feel like we’re in an awkward “in between” stage. He’s not quite ready to go on his own with a Book of Mottoes, but it’s almost like we’ve passed needing copywork every day. Does that make sense?
@Tia,
The resources we’re using are posted on my blog, but I have not finalized our schedule yet. I posted another thread today regarding the issues I’m having with scheduling. If you’d like, you can read my curriculum post here.
@Charlene,
I forgot about Hymns in Prose. Going to re-check that now!
Thanks everyone!
Lindsey
August 8, 2012 at 12:38 am
JennNC
Participant
I feel like we’re in an awkward “in between” stage. He’s not quite ready to go on his own with a Book of Mottoes, but it’s almost like we’ve passed needing copywork every day. Does that make sense?
Yes it does. I’m sorry if I misunderstood your first post. I’m wondering if you could use copywork two or three times a week for the handwriting practice, and then on the day you do dictation not require any other writing/copywork… would that help?
Another thing I have done with my in-between kids is not require all their school work to be in cursive until they are more fluent with it. I don’t know if that would help or not, but thought I would mention it. For example, he could do his dictation in print until later in the year. Just a thought.

August 8, 2012 at 12:43 am
LindseyD
Participant
Jenn, that is a good idea. I hadn’t thought of that. I guess my thinking was that since he’s writing in cursive that we would do everything in cursive. Since copywork and dictation ARE separate subjects and the point of dictation is to learn to spell and punctuate correctly, I suppose it doesn’t matter at all if it’s in cursive or print! No worries about misunderstanding. I’m just ready to be done with planning already! LOL
At Charlene’s suggestion, I just bought the e-book of Hymns in Prose. I think it will work nicely for us. I’ll use it daily for dd who is still working on her cursive and then maybe a couple of times a week for ds who just needs to keep his fresh.
August 8, 2012 at 1:05 am
Charlene
Participant
I’m sorry too I misunderstood what you were asking but glad that I was able to help somewhat.
May I ask which handwriting style you are using to teach cursive. I used HWT for my son but it’s so hard to find copywork for that. I’d like to start my dd(4) (when the time comes) with something that is easier to find but is still beautiful.
August 8, 2012 at 1:14 am
LindseyD
Participant
Zaner-Bloser. But I should add that I did not choose a handwriting style. The curriculum I used last year to teach cursive (A Reason for Handwriting) only came in that style. I didn’t even know it was Zaner-Bloser! I was taught D’Nealian as a child and always found it difficult, hence I have never used it since elementary school. I think the Zaner-Bloser style is simpler and cleaner, nicer-looking on paper.
August 8, 2012 at 1:33 am
Evergreen
Member
I just posted this on another thread but the info may be more pertinent here. We’ve used SW in the past, using one passage per day of dictation, a few days per week. However, at a CM retreat I attended this weekend, one of the gals who led the retreat described how dictation is done at their CM community school: a passage is chosen for a one or two week period (you could use SW for this). Three days per week, the passage is taken out, read, studied, the children are asked what words they might have trouble with and take turns writing them on the board. Grammar points are discussed one day using the passage. If a week is enough preparation, dictation is done the fourth day; if the passage is longer, it is studied the following week and dictation of a portion of the studied passage is done at the end of that week. Copywork was a different thing, and would be done using the poem of the week, a passage from the child’s reading they were particularly drawn to, a Bible verse, etc.
I use copywork as handwriting practice once the child is solid in that skill, but with dictation I want them to concentrate on the spelling and grammar rather than the handwriting – it could be overwhelming otherwise. In our house, copywork goes in a composition book, but the dictation is usually done in a spiral notebook they keep for grammar and dictation.
August 8, 2012 at 1:59 am
Mariah
Participant
I have been following this thread, as this was our first year using Spelling Wisdom, and now I am even more confused! Am I doing this right? Here is what I did: (keep in mind we just finished day 2 of our new school year…)
I have SW scheduled for Monday and Wednesday, we do typing the other two days.
I keep it seperate from handwriting. We are using other things for that, some in print, some in cursive.
On Monday, I had her look at Lesson 1. We talked about punctuation, any words she may not know how to spell, etc. She pointed out the word ‘ought’ as being challenging, so I had write the word down several times in her notebook. She told me she was confident, then, to do the dictation. I did it with her, and she spelled ‘will’ wrong. (the phrase was ‘I am; I can; I ought; I will.’) I blame her father who decided to spend the first day with us and was quite the distraction! 😉 I had difficulty covering up the word with a post it, as the post it covered the whole phrase, so I just covered it with my finger. She was quite distracted by that. I then had her write the mispelled word under the phrase, which she knew to begin with. We put it away, and am I correct we will do the same lesson on Wednesday now instead of moving on?
This was a perfect example of why we switched to SW from AAS. My daughter can spell well (er, memorize lists of words like a champ!), we went through 2 1/2 levels of AAS in one year. I was in constant contact with AAS thinking I was doing the program wrong. She got very few words spelled wrong with AAS, but any other time her spelling is horrible! I was looking forward to having SW correct this in her, so I want to make sure I am doing this right!
August 8, 2012 at 2:14 am
eawerner
Participant
Lindsey,
I would suggest looking at Bogart Family Resources on Currclick for copywork. I have two of their books and think they are well put together. Plus they are having a great sale right now. 🙂
August 8, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Bookworm
Participant
Lindsey,
I use two Spelling Wisdom passages a week. We prep them on some days, and then do them the next day. We do copywork on the days we don’t do the writing part of the dictation. We keep it separate and use other quotes for copywork. I do two things for that—when I have time, I select passages from the books he is reading and type them up. When I’m in a rush, I use preprinted pages from a copywork resource at Currclick. You can usually see a preview of a resource at Currclick–but sometimes that works better than others. We currently are using the Master Writer series, which is a bunch of books I got at a sale. It has several different handwriting styles in it. You can choose a quick preview or a full size preview of the resource and see a few pages, that always helps me a lot.