Posted in Writing

Teaching writing has not been easy for me.  I always enjoyed creative writing when I was in school but when it comes to teaching someone else how to write and the different types of writing, I have not been very successful.  After reading a lot about copywork, we began doing this (my thought was that doing this was better than nothing).  Well, we still incorporate copywork into our school work (after years of wondering if this is going to be helpful some day).  I still think that it will benefit my children although I may not see the fruit of this until later years.  A couple of things that were very helpful to me regarding the use of copywork were Language Arts the Easy Way by Cindy Rushton (click on the link and scroll down until you find it), and this article.

A great source for copywork that I discovered last year is a yahoo group that consists of copywork samples that correspond to the Ambleside Online curriculum.  We don't use Ambleside's curriculum (although I have friends who love it!).....but I have used these copywork selections a lot.  They are divided by grade level and by book, and then by selections from the book.  My kids have enjoyed doing copywork from books they have read in the past.  Click here to go to AOCopywork.  This is not a chat group -- the copywork is in the files section.

We have tried many, many writing curriculums through the years and have never found one that we could stick with and enjoy going through it -- until this year.  A friend introduced me to Shurley English and I began using it with my younger two boys (they are 3rd and 5th grade, so I bought the 4th grade curriculum and they are doing it together).  They love it and it is really easy to teach (takes my time to be right there with them, but is all laid out for the teacher).  I am amazed at how quickly they have learned to identify and label the parts of speech.  It also includes teaching some writing each week, which has been really good for them.  I think that I will be able to add some copywork and other occasional writing activities to this and it will be plenty.

My oldest two boys have done several online classes with Eileen Heath at home2teach.com.  This has been one of the most beneficial things we have done for writing.  She is an excellent teacher and they have learned so much from her.  We will probably continue to take these classes off and on over the next few years.  They are six-week long classes and are fairly intense during that time, but well worth the money.  They also have done or will be doing Winston Grammar Basic and Advanced over the next year.  This is really easy for them to do on their own when they are older.  It's a great hands-on way to learn grammar or to brush up on what they already know.  It really sounds like a hodge-podge of things but we have had some variety and are steadily learning and improving our writing skills.