Copying should be practiced daily, as soon as the print alphabet is learned. Even while learning script in 2nd-3rd grades of the grammar stage; continue working on copying selections daily--just continue to do so in print, until the enough of the script alphabet is learned in order to begin copybook in script. Your child’s copybook can be anything from a penmanship tablet to a spiral notebook to notebook paper in a binder, to a beautifully bound writing journal. In the later grades of the grammar stage (5th-6th grades) it would be good to practice some of the copybook selections as dictation. Especially for children beginning dictation, it might be wise to have the child copy the passage one day, and then write it from dictation the next. More and more dictation can be included until by the end of sixth grade, all or almost all of your child’s copybook selections are written from dictation.

It is not necessary to purchase every copybook resource listed here right away. A child writing in their copybook daily will need lots and lots of material to copy from in the course of six years, and new resources can be purchased when current ones have been exhausted. Also, some of the very highest quality resources are out of print, and the other in-print resources can be used if they cannot be found.

The Holy Bible	Elson Primary & Grammar School Readers by William Elson & Christine Keck
Original McGuffey's Eclectic Primers & Readers by William McGuffey	The Christian Eclectic Readers by William McGuffey, Charles & Betty Burger
The Harp and Laurel Wreath by Laura Berquist	Poetry Selections from the 1000 Good Books list
By These Words by Paul Angle	The World's Famous Orations by William Jennings Bryan