Start with reading aloud short passages like an Aesop fable and have him retell it in his own words. This is oral narration. Build up from there to longer passages, like a Bible passage, until he can narrate a whole chapter of his book. Have a nice discussion about it, asking open-ended questions, not yes/no or short answer questions. Then start small and transition to written narrations. Start with a paragraph, then a half page and then one full page. I would work on this starting small now and building up over the summer break until he is ready for ninth grade written narrations (essays).
As far as dictation, if you will be using Spelling Wisdom, look at the pdf samples to place him where he doesn’t know 3 or 4 words, which he studies to spell correctly on his prepared dictation with you. These books start with short passages to build up confidence and gradually transition to longer passages. To give you an idea for placement, my son will start 9th grade in the middle of book 3. Sometimes we skip a passage if he thinks he knows all the words and I quickly check him orally on the spelling of a few words I think may be harder to spell. So we use the passages to challenge him without being too easy or too difficult. We may not get through book 5 by the end of 12th grade, but that’s okay. They also learn various writing styles, grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary. The grow in skills like attentiveness and audio and visual memory. An alternative to the SW books is to pull passages from books he is reading.
My son has done copywork of the SW dictation passage as preparation the day before. I am not sure if we will keep that up next year or start a book of mottos for him to find his own passages that are meaningful to him to copy from his reading books.
For a grammar program, SCM recommends Analytical Grammar. There are other options available like Winston Grammar. If he is taking any foreign language course, he will learn a lot of grammar from that, too.
