Copybook (education)

By copying, the student is supposed to practise penmanship, spelling, reading comprehension, punctuation, and vocabulary.

[2] The 1802 book The Port folio recommends the copybook method of learning fine penmanship over the previously used method of "engraved models", citing the advantage of having the example text closer to the student's reproduction.

The author adds, "A neat copybook has often laid the foundation, or shown the first symptoms, of taste in all the elegant arts of life.

[4] Other copybooks, however, focused chiefly on writing literacy and used maxims and sometimes Bible verses as their material.

[5] There are also botanical copybooks like Studies of Flowers from Nature that were popular in the 19th century for developing watercolor painting skills.