Dictation question that's probably been asked a million times.

[Night Elf]

I was reading SWB's response about her new writing program. She mentioned dictation and said something about a student writing 2 - 3 sentences from dictation. What exactly does that mean?

 

1. I read all of the sentences aloud and my child should remember them and write them without any further prompting from me?

 

2. I read all of the sentences aloud first. Then give one sentence at a time for dictation.

 

3. I read all of the sentences aloud first. Then give several words at a time until all the sentences are done?

 

Does that make sense?

[Julie in GA]

That you are giving 2 to 3 sentences, one at a time to your child, not a longer passage that is 2-3 sentences long. Does that make sense?

 

You would dictate the first sentence, saying it as many times as you need to for your child to write it. Then look at it together, mark corrections needed, and have him/her rewrite the sentence. Then go on to number 2. The sentences that you give don't have to be related to each other in any way. They can be from different sources (history book, read-aloud literature, something with spelling words in it, etc.)

 

HTH!

[Night Elf]

Thanks Julie. That's a bit clearer. What is the ultimate goal? I seem to remember SWB's Writing Without Fear talking about leading up to a paragraph. Is there a point when I know the student no longer needs dictation? Or is this something that is used through middle or high school?

[DarcyM]

I don't think I could dictate 3 sentences at once. And new dictation takers may need to start with a couple words at a time.

 

Point? To pull together mechanics, without having to think about composition.

 

Have you listened to SWB's Writing Without Fear CD? Totally worth the $13.

 

As for how long? I have no idea. My oldest is 7.5. ;)

[buddhabelly]

I would just add that the child should say the whole sentence aloud before writing it down. That is part of "holding it in your head," as we call it here. And by the way, that is a big part of what dictation teaches: how to hold a complete sentence in one's head long enough to get it down on paper. That, in turn, helps a child hold his/her own thoughts in her head long enough to write it down. Dictation is also asking the child to imitate good writing. If you imitate someone with good posture, you may eventually have good posture. Ben Franklin taught himself writing by imitation, and he seems to have done pretty well for himself. ;)

[Night Elf]

Okay. All of your thoughts are the same as mine. So what would you do with a child who has no problem doing dictation? We can do several sentences, one at a time. My children have no problems with good sentence structure or punctuation. They even understand how to punctuate dialogue. I would say the only punctuation they haven't really encountered are colons and semicolons. They are both natural spellers as well. I never need to spell a word for them. They, however, are always very helpful when I need spelling help. :o

 

I do have SWB's Writing Without Fear and have listened to it numerous times. I'll listen again today but I think my issue is that it seems to address beginning writers very well and doesn't really help me understand the next part of the process. Both of my children have no issues with dictation or written narration. They have both learned to outline with a workbook but I haven't yet put that into practice with a book the way SWB suggests. When doing written narration, both of my children usually retell with vivid details. In fact, I'd say they both need to work on being able to summarize better and not include so many details. That's where I had to stop with my ds11 though. He has Aspergers Syndrome and summarizing is extremely difficult for him. He wants to retell everything and gets upset at the thought of leaving anything out. It's a slow process. :)

[Jenny in Atl]

I would think this is practice for when our kids are in lecture halls and need to be able to listen and write at a good clip. Of course now, they use laptops and recording devices, but this skill is still something to encourage and refine. I plan on dictation of some sort till the bitter end. :D