We started doing copywork when dd5 got bored with the handwriting workbook we were using. She knew how to form all the letters and was just getting bored writing them over and over again (and therefore acting silly/fighting with me about doing it). I started letting her choose a sentence from a favorite storybook each week and she would copy that. We started with just a couple of words at a time, and have worked up to now she does about a half of a sentence each day. (These are longer sentences from our read-aloud books.) She is learning to read and really starting to take off with that, but I’m not necessarily that concerned that she is able to read everyword that I give her in her copywork. (Actually, she’s probably learned some new words that way, and it’s highly motivating to her because I let her pick the story that the sentence comes from!) At any rate, she really loves doing handwriting now, and even though we are on a ‘break’ from school now she will sometimes ASK me if she can do it anyhow!
All that to say is sort of let your son lead the way. If he is still happy practicing just letters in whatever format (with playdough, on a whiteboard, etc), then let him keep doing that for awhile. If that is getting to where is seems too easy for him, then I’d start ramping it up gradually – into words, and then parts of sentences, and then whole sentences.
Oh, and speaking of little whiteboards, I’ve found a really fantastic cheap way to make one is to just stick a piece of cardstock or paper inside a page protector. The whiteboard marker wipes right off the plastic with a tissue or a sock. And the beauty of this is you can customize it – stick any kind of worksheet you’d like to be able to reuse in there. We’ve had one that had a piece of that lined beginning handwriting paper inside, and have also used it with our MEP Reception worksheets for math (since they are all color – I figure then at least I can recoup the cost of all the color printing by being able to use them again.)
Jen