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Another (different) Spelling Wisdom Question
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My daughter will be 10 in November. She is an excellent and ferocious reader, like her mom. She is on Lesson 70 in Spelling Wisdom 1.
We do Spelling Wisdom as follows:
1. I introduce a new lesson on Monday by having her look at the new one and key into any words she thinks she may have trouble spelling.
2. Tuesday and Wednesday she studies the passage for about 10 minutes.
3. On Thursday I ask if she thinks she is ready and if she is we do dictation, if not, we study and do it the next school day.
She is doing really well with her spelling, only making a mistake maybe once a month. And she started out with horrible spelling. My question is how concerned should I be about how she is learning punctuation in this book. I mean things such as comma and quotation placement.
I ask this because she does really well making sure the commas, quotations and other things are where they should be. However, she has told me that that is because she “memorizes” which words have punctuation after them. For instance, if a long sentence uses 3 commas after 3 words then she memorizes those words along with the punctuation. So for a sentence she may say this in her mind to remember: man-comma-boat-comma-me-period-quotation. Does that make sense?
I know Dictation is mainly for spelling but should I be letting her do this? Or is it sort of “whatever works”?
That is one reason I don’t care for just memorizing dictation. If it was my daughter, I would be taking the time to teach the reasons for the punctuation so she is learning it that way instead of just memorization.
When you introduce her to the passage on Monday, also review the punctuation/capitalization rules, too.
Or you can continue to let her just memorize them and know that she’ll be learning the “why’s” at a later point.
However, with the way you’re doing it on Monday, it gives you a good opportunity to review these concepts as well in a wholistic way.
Britney, this is our first year with Spelling Wisdom, so I don’t claim to be an expert by any means. It almost seems to me like 10 minutes, two days in a row, is a very long time to be studying the passage, thereby giving her more time to memorize. We complete two dictation exercises a week, beginning and ending each exercise on the same day. It’s not drawn out at all, although that will likely change as the passages get longer. With my 8yo, he is given the passage, looks it over to identify words he may not know how to spell, practices those words on paper a time or two, and then I ask him if he made sure to notice punctuation. I then try to dictate to him as naturally as possible, using pauses or exclamations or changing my voice to ask a question, whatever the appropriate punctuation might be. Like your dd, he is also an excellent reader and knows how to elocute punctuation in his reading, so I think this method helps him. If you’re doing any formal grammar lessons with your dd, that might be a good opportunity to take your dictation exercises and “dissect” them, talking about the what’s and why’s of the various punctuation, if that makes sense.
Thanks for the advice ladies.
Lindsey- How long do you allow your ds to study the passage when you give it to him? Do you correct the punctuation with post its the same as you would the spelling? At this point we are not doing formal grammar lessons. We struggled through Grammar Land in the spring with LOTS of stress and a few tears when it got beyond nouns, verbs and pronouns. So, I thought we’d hold off for a bit.
Rachel- I think I will start next week looking over the punctuation with her when I give her the passage. I just haven’t been giving it as much attention one on one as I have with spelling. I like that idea alot. It would sort of be introducing the rules without drilling them.
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