Whenever I go to homeschool conferences, the kind of workshops I’m drawn to are the ones that talk about writing.  Why?  Because writing is not easy and many struggle with this specific subject, whether they’re in home school or public school.  I struggle with it all the time and my hope is that my children will learn how to write well in the future.  I believe writing is very important because it enables us to convey our thoughts on paper (or on the computer screen) to others.  It is a form of communication.  My goal of education for the children is to teach them to write well, speak well, and think well.

I believe writing should be taught when the students are young.  Unfortunately, most students get formally educated around junior high and high school age, and by then it is more difficult to learn good writing skills though it is not impossible.   My oldest is officially in first grade this year and I have already started him on writing.  Lest you think I’m teaching him how to write essays, research paper, creative writing, or the nitty gritty of grammar, rest assured that the kind of writing assignment I have for him is quite attainable.

The kind of writing my oldest is doing is copywork in which he copies word for word from a sample of good literature.  This approach is very simple yet very beneficial in learning how to write.  The rationale behind copywork is that by copying good writing, you learn the writing structure and the components that make an essay, article, or book a fine piece of literature.  With good models the students will eventually learn how to write well.  Of course copywork is the first step towards writing well and there are other techniques and components.

I am currently having him copy the gospel of John from the Bible, one verse a day.  The reason I picked this text is because our pastor recently began a sermon series teaching through it.  Doing copywork during the week helps my son to be familiar with and understand the teaching on Sundays.   Before he starts writing, I read the verse with him and point out several observations of the verse such as:

• The first word of the sentence is capitalized.
• Notice that this is a new paragraph so you have to indent.
• Proper nouns are capitalized.
• The letter “I” is always capitalized no matter where it is in a sentence.
• There are several different punctuation marks here.  What are they?
• Notice the open and close quotation marks?

The above observations are very simple and takes little time to explain.  The goal is not to educate him on all the grammatical nuances but to allow him to be familiar with it.  Soon enough he will  begin to notice a pattern of writing and learn why certain punctuation marks are used.  The instructions I give him for copywork are:

• Copy every word and punctuation marks, word for word.
• Verse numbers, reference, superscript, and subscript do not need to be copied.

After he finishes his assignment, I go over with him and discuss mistakes he’s made.  After he corrects his mistakes, he is all done with his assignment.