Frequently Asked Questions

Absolutely.

In the Ditto Sheets Toolbox, you can make Preschool Sheets with tracing words. This means the text of your choice is inserted inside the manuscript lines. Since the words are meant to be traced, we have lightened the font so you can see her pencil marks easier!

With Ditto Sheets Toolbox, you can create very personalized Sheets. Her full name, for example, and other personal information you would like your student to learn. In our house, we were eager for our children to learn their parents' phone numbers.

You can also increase or decrease the size of the letters, and choose the teach-printing font, or the simplest student font.

When your student has graduated from tracing, you can use the Ditto Sheets Step 1 pages to make literal copywork pages.

High school students pursuing a memorization goal can absolutely benefit from using Ditto Sheets.

Many assignments can be given to students where they are required to memorize a text... speeches, famous documents, lines in a play, lengthy poems, and Bible passages.

Using Ditto Sheets steps 1, 2, and 3 is quite helpful in learning and meeting their memorization goal.

Using just the first letters can also be very useful. "First Letters" is a variation on step 2. There are no blank lines to fill in. The line are omitted. Simply paste in your text, reduce the size of the letters, to a small size (since this is not a copywork sheet, and is for reading only), print it out and carry around this "cheat sheet" and refer to it multiple times a day. No writing.

Ditto Sheets is also helpful when learning foreign languages. Copying a text word-for-word can teach the brain more effectively simply reading.

If word-for-word accuracy is important to your memorization goal, then Ditto Sheets will be insanely helpful.

Everyone will have their own recommendations for apps and songs, but for lengthy texts Ditto Sheets will give you the edge.

Specifically, using first letter hints, as well as first letters only is very helpful.

No. . . . . sort of.. . . . It depends on how you use it. . . . but no. . .

Ditto Sheets is not a curriculum that provides a set text, or set assignments.

Ditto Sheets is a tool for assisting the educator and the student to achieve the goals they have set for themselves.

You, the educator provide your own text... pasted in, typed in, or use your phone to dictate your words to the to the Toolbox. Make your own customizations, and then print the PDF you just created.

For example, you could create a Ditto Sheet and instruct the student to fill in the copywork over the course of six days (2 days of Step 1, 3 days of Step 2, and 1 day of Step 3.)

Ditto Sheets could be used as a tool for creating an entire copywork curriculum across multiple subjects, or a small supplemental tool used on a case-by-case basis.

In my homeschool, I wanted my oldest two two memorize the New City Catechisms, but not the shortened-for-kids version, so I missed out on their awesome songs. Ditto Sheets to the rescue! Each week I assigned a catechism (or two, if they were super short). Come Friday, they had it down pat. It was quite hands-off for me. So in my case, yes, I'd say I did use Ditto Sheets as a curriculum. We used Ditto Sheets daily throughout the entire school year, and it was not piggy-backing on any other curriculum we were doing. I had the freedom anytime I wanted to weave in other Scriptures that spoke to our life circumstances.

The freedom of choice, and flexibility in formatting was AWESOME for our family. I hope it is for your family as well!

Yes.

Educators who are helping children form letters, and then later practice their letters will love Ditto Sheets.

Fonts for teaching letter forming are built into Ditto Sheets Toolbox, as well as simple fonts for mimicking.

Additionally, the educator can choose to place the text in the manuscript lines for tracing, or above the manuscript lines for copying.

Preschoolers and early writers will have the ability to practice personalized worksheets, and educators can print custom sheets to help them learn their essential information, and other fun things!

Printables are finished PDF files. With any PDF, you cannot amend any part of it. (Think: buying a cake from the window of a bakery) Anyone can purchase a Printable at any time from our TPT or Etsy Stores.

Printables are an excellent trial run for using Ditto Sheets if you're not ready to jump in and have fun with the Toolbox.

The Toolbox is limited to subscribers. Within Ditto Sheets Toolbox the tools are in your hands. YOU get to create. Your text choices, all the look-and-feel nuances, all the cusomizations are in your hands. (Think: you're the chef choosing the ingredients, flavors, colors, size, layers, decorations, fillings, toppers)

There is no one-size-fits-all answer, but here are some guidelines. This is a decent place to start, fully knowing that you'll amend the 'plan' as you progress.

For the imaginary fifth grade student...

I picked a 60 word text for example. It works out to be 2 pages when the ruling size is 1/2 inch.

DAY 1 Provide the student with the text for Step 1. He should read the text in its entirety. On Step 1, all the words are visible, and the student copies exactly, paying attention to every detail... spelling and punctuation included.

DAY 2. Same exact thing

DAY 3. Same exact thing a third time.

DAY 4. He should read the text in its entirety just like before. Then COVER UP THE TEXT. No cheating.

You should turn off any letters or numbers you don't want to appear in your Ditto Sheet before pasting text into your Toolbox. ESV.org and biblegateway.com both give the user the ability to turn these off. Look for the settings gear, "text settings," or "page options" in these online Bibles.

You can also delete those marks after they are pasted into the student copywork area.

Further, on esv.org (and other sites as well) when a verse is highlighted, a menu automatically pops up with options to copy the highlighed portion to you clipboard. We do not recommend this method.

Instead, Right-click your text, and click 'copy' the old fashioned way.

See these comparisons...

Gold star to you for observing this!

We programed the manuscript lines to exactly fit the font that you have assigned to that Ditto Sheet. This is intended to be helpful to students who are aiming to emulate that font perfectly. If the font itself has a midline taller than 50%, then the manuscript lines will as well.

If in your school the midline needs to be exactly centered between the topline and base line, then we suggest using the Teaching Print font for printing, and the Learning Curve font for cursive. Both are available in the Ditto Sheets Toolbox.

Once Toolbox is launched, you definitely will want to Subscribe to that! You will love it. So join our mailing list to stay updated about it's launch.

In the mean time, please submit a contact form with your request. We can then find out exactly what you need. We will upload the new Ditto Sheet to one of our online stores and we will send you a link as soon as it is ready.

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This is a really important question. It is not frequently asked, but I want you to know my answer anyway.

I was creating printable Ditto Sheets this morning, and Phil 3:9 was on deck. This is what it looked like on esv.org:

Do you see that dash at the end of the verse? It bugged me to end the verse on a dash character like that so I almost omitted it.

Then that phrase "rightly handling the word of truth" from 2 Tim 2:15 popped in my mind.

And I better not "add to... nor take from" the Word of God (Deut 4:2)

And still even Jesus said, "not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished."

Did you know how seemingly insignificant the jot/tittle/iota is? Have a look at this article from gotquestion.org. It's awesome.

So all these flashes of "NO! DON'T OMIT THE DASH!" rushed through my head!

If even the "insignificant" marks are important enough that the Lord says not to change anything, then I had better fall in line!

So you can trust that when I created Ditto Sheets Printables I only copied and pasted literally what esv.org had. No changes, I promise.

If a verse reference reads like "4b-5", for example, then that means the copywork starts in the middle of verse 4. "5-6a" means all of 5 is copied and only the first part of verse 6. These instances of truncated verses happen only when I need the certain snippet that is relevant for the memory verse topic. Using "a" and "b" communicates to you that there is more in the verse.

Further, whenever you see brackets, [ ], this means that the text inside the bracket is not exactly as shown in Scripture. Usually this happens when the nouns and pronouns are switch out for readability/clarity. You'll see this in books and articles a lot, but to my recollection, I don't think they happen on any Ditto Sheets.

When I am creating Ditto Sheets Printable PDFs, especially if it is Scripture, I copy and paste literally from esv.org.

Many verses start or end in the middle of of a sentence. therefore the punctuation may look incomplete in the Ditto Sheet, but these are just instances of me being faithful to not change the Biblical text.

So when you see a verse start with a lowercase letter, or end with a comma, I hope you smile and appreciate that I will not alter Scripture for the sake of our grammar preferences!

See also the question "Are there any formatting changes to the Scripture verses in the Printables?"

There are no Handwriting Police on the prowl (that I know of) but here are some curricula's guidelines ...

D'Nealian

• K: ¾ inch ruling
• 1st -3rd grade: ½ inch ruling
• 4th and 5th grade: 11/32 inch (traditional wide ruled paper)

Zaner-Bloser

• K: ¾ inch ruling
• 1st grade: ⅝ inch ruling
• 2nd grade: ½ inch ruling
• 3rd and 4th grade: ⅜ inch ruling
• 5th and 6th grade: 11/32 inch (traditional wide ruled paper)