I only recently learned that copywork can be a tool used for spelling (not just exposure to good literature and a chance to practice good handwriting), so it is good to also hear the other side of the story! Thank you for sharing.

We are a family that tried copywork as a spelling method first, and I am SO GLAD that I moved my kids over to All About Spelling. I was noticing that my 1st graders were getting the same words wrong over and over again when they tried to spell anything independently–and these were words that were being used frequently in their copywork passages (they were definitely in the “auto-pilot” category, with one struggling speller). With only a few months of All About Spelling their spelling has turned around, I now have the tools to offer spelling reminders as they work on other projects, and even their 3 year old brother is recognizing spelling rules (though he is still a pre-reader).

I’ve been afraid of teaching spelling since I am a horrible speller myself. I learned through list and copy work. I love that there is a better option to teach my kids!

My son HATES copywork. He’s a slow writer and easily distracted. Doing handwriting practice is enough of a fight, so I cut down on as much busywork that is in the form of copywork as possible. He certainly would not absorb spelling through copywork as he would be too busy hating it and being upset that he has to do it.

I have noticed that copywork isn’t the best way to teach spelling for a NON-struggling learner. Learning spelling with the OG method seems to work best for all students. Even the non struggling spellers need reasons for their spelling. They may move through the curriculum faster, but it is still important.

As a tutor of reading, writing and spelling, I have found that copying words over and over to learn how to spell them doesn’t work for many kids. I like your approach, combining many different ways of teaching spelling. For a tutor, that works, but for a classroom teacher, ones-size-fits-all is so much easier and time-efficient even though it is less effective. I once had a student who acted out everything I taught her. It took forever, but she retained the acted-out information well, including spelling. you offer good ideas.

Just got ours in the mail! My daughter is ADD, has anxiety and is dyslexic. I can’t wait to begin because NOTHING else has worked!

I have definitely seen my distracted learner veer off course this year as we have tried a program with copy work. Here we are mid-year and I’m coming back to AAS which has worked well in the past. We attempted an all in one program this year. While it is more expensive to piece together each curricular area, it is worth it for our family to make sure our child is reaching her full potential!

I have an above average child who was recently tested for some educational weaknesses. The doctors recommended a solid spelling program. I didn’t realize the lack of learning that occurs with the copy methods. Maybe this program can help.

I LOVE learning the rules of spelling along with my children! When I tell my daughter that I never learned them in school she is incredulous! Thank you!!

This was a good reminder to me not to have my child copy words she misspelles in a paragraph. I almost did that last week to make them into a spelling list. Not good!

We will be starting with AAS1 when we begin AAR2 after the holidays. I really think it will be great! My mom has a newer masters in reading and was a reading coach and she really thinks both the programs are awesome. We are spending time working more on sight words between since his phonics is much stronger than his sight words. Which, personally, I love. I think it’s better to know how then just memorize a lot of words.

This is exactly my son. He can get distracted 3 or 4 times in one word. There is always a story to tell or an analogy to be made! I would like to add copywork someday. AAR and AAS have been a Godsend. I caught little man reading to our dog the other day

We’ve actually stopped most copywork. My children were not paying any attention to how the words were spelt and coping most words incorrectly. Now we just use copywork for cursive handwriting practice.

My older son, 12, who does NOT like reading and has had some diagnosed issues with it, surprised me by asking me if we were going to get the next level of AAR….he said he likes the activities. We started last year and managed to complete the first two levels of reading, AND the first level of spelling. It was also the first time I saw him take ANY book and go off by himself. I guess that’s Progress!

I agree with this post, but mainly because, my struggling learners are dysgraphic, as well, and fatigue easily when writing. Copywork sounded so Charlotte Masonesque and independent. It fit the ideal homeschooling situation I had imagined….us all lounging about on a blanket under a tree, contently copying Yeats and sketching something we’d observed into our nature notebooks while, inside my pristine house, some delicious meal (that we’d grown in our very own kid-planted and maintained garden) bubbled away on the counter (which I’d cleaned earlier during my very domestic morning cleaning checklist, using the cleaning products I’d made at home with all natural and probably organic ingredients.) Enter reality…”Jesse, how did you get your iPad open and David, for the love of all that is holy and just, stop dry-firing that NERF gun! I can’t stand that plasticy Please, son, let’s just at least get a couple of pages of math done. If you write the first page, I’ll write the second page….Yes, TWO pages…one to make up for yesterday and one for today. Yes, you can use the stick you charred the end of with the magnifying glass, instead of a pencil, just so long as you do it! No, son, copying that airplane out of your library book does not constitute ‘Copywork’.” My daughter actually does school on a blanket under a tree a lot of the time, but her homeschool uniform is a gymnastics leotard or pajamas, I swear.
All of this to say— no, copywork isn’t one-size-fits-all. And don’t let the proponents of copywork make you feel like a homeschooling failure because your 9 yr old isn’t copying whole pages from the original diaries of John Bunyan. It’s okay if homeschooling involves a prepackaged curriculum if it helps your child learn most effectively and you will live, even if you have to be directly involved in instructing your child, even when having your child work quietly and independently seems like the unattainable Holy Grail. It doesn’t make you a sell-out or a failure. It makes you a real homeschooler; a parent who uses whichever method best suits the needs and learning style of each individual child.

The more I read the more interested I am in the program. Still researching!

Interesting that you talk about visual/audio/kinesthetic learners. Currently “the experts” are rubbishing this idea. No matter what they say, I can think of countless times that I’ve taught a child who “doesn’t get it” until I remember that they have a particular VAK preference. Once I devise a way of teaching the topic using their preference, they get it. it’s excellent if we use all methods at once, but sometimes it just has to be tailored to their style.

I tried copywork for my Dyslexic son to learn how to write his name. It was pretty ineffective. He does well with rhymes or songs. For example, “C-H-A-R-L-E-S” to the tune of ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ finally helped the spelling to stick. :)

Yah they made me write words 250 times in grade 3. I felt like I was big punished because I couldn’t spell. Dyslexic and they didn’t use that word back then.

We LOVE All About Spelling! No more boring memorization or spelling tests. Now my kids happily work through the steps with me and learn “WHY” words are spelled how they are. No more mystery, just patterns and predicable rules. It’s helped me with my spelling! :)

I never even considered copywork as a way to teach or reinforce spelling. Having color-grapheme synesthesia myself, spelling was always easy because the words would just look wrong if they were misspelled.

It’s interesting, because growing up, I did so much reading that spelling just became second-nature to me- either a word just looked right or it didn’t. I barely needed to study for tests, and I don’t know that I gave much thought to rules- I just KNEW how to spell. Now, teaching children who have difficulty spelling, I’m learning to go about it a whole new way!

I have a son whom we adopted from Ethiopia and your tips and suggestions you send via email have helped us tremendously. I look forward to using All About Reading with him.

We love both copy work and AAS in out home :). I think one key to copy work is to have your child have a picture of the entire word they are copying (and not just letter for letter). That said, AAS has been a life saver for my son. Slow but steady!

We’ve only used copy work for handwriting. It’seems also one of our many steps to memorization. And we gladly take any other benefits that may naturally come!

But this is interesting!

Haven’t tried AAS, but certainly can comment on AAR! What a wonderful, well thought out program!!!! The progress I see with my little one is astounding! (And it’s so much fun!)

We’ve had difficulties with copywork in the past. This article really clarifies why.

Yes, we have found that copy work hasn’t helped my daughter with her spelling. We love AAS!

My son does copywork for writing practice not for spelling teaching. He loves being able to look at words and copy them.

I think copywork is important for kids

Hi, this is totally true. I agree with everyword, I tried to teach my son spelling via copy work for 3 years, it did not work. We are now using All About Spelling. See my blog post about this very issue;
http://straightpathhomeschool.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/charlotte-mason-and-spelling.html

Thanks for the useful information!!!!!
I choose your program to study my daughter. For her English is not native language.
And the fact , your first level – the second for us)))
Thank you.

When we first started spelling with our oldest we started out using AAS. It was working pretty good but my son wanted to try a different new curriculum. It uses copywork, and I can absolutely see the “autopilot” take over each day. Then at the end of the week he can’t even remember how to spell words he had mastered using AAS. I think we’re gonna have to make the switch back.

I appreciate this article, and I agree that copywork alone is not sufficient for spelling instruction. But copywork is meant to be paired with dictation. A student spends time (several sessions) studying and copying a passage. Then, identifying words that are still difficult and working to form a mental picture of these words. Once the student is ready, the teacher dictates the passage while the student writes it out as they remember seeing it.
This still may not be the right choice for all students, but copywork is meant to be paired with dictation.

I’m glad to read this article, as I keep being told by the Charlotte Mason homeschool “powers-that-be” that Charlotte Mason-style copywork and dictation works for every.single.child.with.no.exception. If it’s not working for you, that’s because you’re doing it wrong. I implemented the full CM-style language arts method (including visualizing while doing copywork, kinesthetic word-building exercises, narration, etc.) for 6 years and by age 12, my dyslexic son could not spell CAT. It was so frustrating – much more so for my poor son, as continuing to pursue something that’s not working creates a lot of anxiety ):

I started using AAS about a year ago, and we’re a little ways into book 2. (We’re going very slowly, as seems to be necessary.) Weirdly, I’m hyperlexic, and as I’ve been using the books, I’ve realized that it would be been very difficult for me to have created these lessons for him on my own, having learned reading/spelling differently even from typical folks.

Yesterday, we sat in front of our magnet board, while my son placed the letters for SALE. I told him it was right, and he beamed ear to ear. He said, “I always wanted to know how to spell that, and I now I do.”

To say I’m pleased would be an understatement.

Until we found All About Spelling last summer things were a mess.. at 11 years old my grand daughter had been going backwards for two years and no end insight.. this situation started to reverse the very first lesson in level one and there has been no looking back.. everything has improved with her spelling skills including her memory skills, reading and willingness to try cursive writing again..She needs to learn the way All About Spelling teaches with sight, hearing and touch altogether. but there is more to why AAS works when nothing else did. the way the sounds are presented was not the way she was taught before…she has trouble hearing with her mind some of those sounds getting them mixed up with each other which are now identified and work on without the heartache that was our spelling lessons before AAS..the tools she has learned with vowel teams and syllable tags etc keeps her thinking about how the words are formed. I gave her a 30 word spelling test Friday..they were made up of new words in the latest lesson and review words.. she had 28 out of 30 right!! before AAS it would be more like 3 out of 30 along with tears of frustration for her and me.. it was fun to watch her form the sounds of the letters if she became stuck and thinking as it turned out about how the vowel teams worked.. instead of having to rely on her rather unreliable memory of the past, she had tools to help her get tings right.. the most fun though is to see her journaling every single night.. what started as just one sentence has evolved into pages sometimes.. along with that are her short stories she makes up for creative writing. she could not make up a story to save her soul before. this is all due to AAS. I believe that the prepared dictation, which she loves by the way, has been a real bonus . lately I have added prepared passages from history books we are studying for her to copy doing cursive writing.. the surprise was not that her poor writing has improved nor her spelling but that she easily memorizes what she is reading and writing.. believe it or not we have always had an issue with the “Pledge of Allegiance”. two days of reading and writing this once, not over and over again and she pops up reciting the whole thing word perfect without being asked.. I am not sure which of us was shocked more…so.. I have found that prepared dictation like everything else about AAS has made all the difference.