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1st Prepared dictation=Disaster
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I am very new to CM methods in that I’ve always utilized living books and oral narration, but not so much written narration or prepared dictation. My middle son is 9 years old, and reads well, so I thought I would introduce prepared dictation to him. He picked out a sentence from his nature reader, and I wrote it down. We discussed the words, he picked a couple that he thought he’d have trouble spelling. I went over some different ways of studying those words etc. Well, 4 days later, he says he ready. We sit down and I start dictating to him, and he misspells almost every single word, including the ones he studied. He also got EXTREMELY stressed over the fact that I was covering the wrong ones with sticky tabs. When we finished, the entire sentence was covered in tabs, and he was in tears. Someone wiser tell me why this feels like a failure? Are we doing something wrong? Is it just because it’s a new thing to him?
Short on time, but I’ll say we do our corrections after. Covering them mid dictation was a stressful distraction here. You could try French dictation first, too. Print the sentence with blanks for only a few words and then work up to full dictation. Also make sure to choose a passage with only 2-4 unknown words.
We’re doing prepared dictation with 3 kids this year. Here are a few things I have learned with the variety of children/personalities:
1. Most important, be sure the selection has no more than 3-4 words the child cannot spell on day 1. This is essential to setting them up for success.
2. Practice the words several times/ways. Mine use the dictation passage as copywork on day 1. They choose their spelling words from it on day 2 and copy those, plus spell orally. (Ideally, the copying of these words is done onto index cards for practicing. Day 3 they practice their words (have someone read the card to them, they spell it. Also write on the dry erase board for another practice. Look at punctuation of the passage this day. Day 4 they really should have the spelling down hopefully. They focus in on punctuation, maybe writing the passage as copywork again if they want to. Day 5 we do the prepared dictation.
3. We, too, do not cover words along the way. It totally threw off the child. They wrote it and then we looked at the original to compare. If there was a mistake we talked about it, but mostly I praised them for their work all week.
Makayla has been doing dictation for 2 years, this is Joseph and Emma’s first year. It’s been interesting!
I agree with the previous posters. I just wanted to add that I would start simpler.
If you look at the sample of Spelling Wisdom book 1 https://simplycharlottemason.com/store/spelling-wisdom/ you will see that the first few passages have very few words. I think this has given my kids a nice easy introduction. As Tristan said, there should only be 3-4 words that the child doesn’t already know. The first exercise in Spelling Wisdom is “I am; I can; I ought; I will”. Only five different words, and only one that’s likely unfamiliar. The second exercise is “Better be safe than sorry.” Exercise 3 is “Practice what you preach.”
Even if you don’t use the Spelling Wisdom resource, it can give you an idea of the level and pace of progression.
Also, many people seem to recommend waiting until age 10 for dictation, so don’t feel like you need to do a whole lot at age 9. I think small doses are fine at this stage.
Joanne
I’m using Spelling Wisdom. Joanne is right, it’s wonderfully paced with simpler passages to begin with so a child gets their feet under them with the process!
We do the same as already mentioned. Copywork, practice, review, practice with mom/bro. orally, etc., then dictation. Oh, and waiting until age 10 has been better for my dc.
HTH
When using Spelling Wisdom, I though that we were to study more than one passage per week. Tristan, I like your schedule.
Okay, I’ll nix the sticky tabs. I do have Spelling Wisdom, but I let him pick the sentence because I figured he’d pick one that he found interesting and that he was confident of knowing the most of the words. His sentence was:
There are more kinds of crabs than you could count.
He even wrote “u” in place of “you”. And I KNOW he can spell that word, because I’ve seen him write elsewhere just fine. I know he’s not 10 yet, but I’m just so nervous about not doing any “real” spelling. Can someone explain to me why lists of spelling words are no-nos in the CM way of thinking? Why prepared dictation is a better way? Im asking this in a most sincere way-trying to learn! 🙂
I have a friend who uses the French method with great results to start her children out with dictation.
I don’t do “in line” corrections either because it’s wildly distracting, I can never find the right size thing to cover the words and it just doesn’t work for us practically speaking. I know the wisdom behind it – keeping the mind’s eye from seeing that wrong spelling but that said I haven’t had sucess with it yet.
I hope it’s ok to ask another question here too?
We do dictation 1 or 2 times a week here. We’ve done this for a while but I have to honest with you all – I don’t see improvements in their spelling yet. I know this due to my errors in consistency and diligence. I want to just share that to say that you can find the method that works for you (the correct passage sources, the correct frequency, the correct age to implement dictation) and still not see the results you want right away. It is a longer process for success than I’ve experienced with other CM methods and I’m afraid I’m sort of impatient with it. I use my errors as caution for others! And as a hope that I’ll be better at this one day.
Do any of you have suggestions for making this a more enjoable experience rather than something the children want to rush through and be done with? Has anyone ever tried something that worked well with children who approach Dictation this way? I wonder if I need a more consistent plan of attack for spelling all around?
I’ll be happy to jump in here with some thoughts on the benefits of dictation.
- It’s more interesting than a list, because the sentence(s) contain ideas.
- It makes the transition to writing sentences seamless. Often with lists, the student learns the pattern that the list follows and passes the test, but that “learning” doesn’t carry over into writing sentences. With dictation, they are always writing sentences and are used to seeing the words spelled correctly in context.
- Prepared dictation sets up a habit of looking at how words are spelled as you read. The first step in the preparation process is to read the passage and look for words you don’t already know how to spell. That is a great habit to have! Once it is in place, the student is set to continue learning how to spell new words his entire life. (Incidently, if you have a student who is a prolific reader but a poor speller, she is probably reading too fast; her eyes are moving so quickly across the page that they are not looking at how words are spelled. Prepared dictation can help her practice slowing down and looking at spellings.)
I hope these thoughts help some.
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