kristavws Posted September 17, 2010 Share Posted September 17, 2010 My son is currently working through WWE 3. He is a very visual learner. Dictation was very frustrating for him, and I was finding that I had to read the sentence a zillion times before he could dictate it properly. I started letting him look at the passage first, prior to reading it to him. If I let him actually read the passage first, I have found that he is easily able to dictate the sentence with me only reading it three times. My question is...am I undermining the point of the dictation exercise by letting him read it himself first? Thanks, Krista Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetest Posted September 17, 2010 Share Posted September 17, 2010 My understanding is that the purpose of the dictation is to teach your child to transfer a complete thought from their mind and put it onto paper. I think having the child visually read the passage first might undermine this skill development. Have you listened to SWBs audio lecture about teaching Elementary writing? I would highly recommend it... WWE really makes sense to me after listening to it! You can buy the audio download here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwickimom Posted September 17, 2010 Share Posted September 17, 2010 That depends..I am having the exact same problem. What I learned was that Charlotte Mason way of dictation is called "studied dictation" and she allows the child to study the passage as long as they need. I have been going back and forth about doing that system, keeping with SWB's system to try and help my DD become a better auditory learner, or dropping it. I am just not convinced that it is doing her any good to keep at SWB's way if she is a visual learner. I do want to better her auditory skills, but I dont want her to hate dictation or for it to frustrate her to the point of hating it. So, I was not much help lol. Maybe check out the Charlotte Mason way and see if that would work for you guys :):) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colleen in NS Posted September 17, 2010 Share Posted September 17, 2010 My understanding is that the purpose of the dictation is to teach your child to transfer a complete thought from their mind and put it onto paper. I think having the child visually read the passage first might undermine this skill development. This is my understanding as well. So, I conduct dictations with this understanding - knowing that my visual child has a harder time with it than my kinetic child. I just give him/her shorter dictations to start with, and gradually build up. It's an exercise in patience (for me), but I do see progress. If a thought is in their mind, they are not going to be able to "see" it first before writing it down - they have to learn to see it in their minds, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetest Posted September 17, 2010 Share Posted September 17, 2010 That depends..I am having the exact same problem. What I learned was that Charlotte Mason way of dictation is called "studied dictation" and she allows the child to study the passage as long as they need. The thing is that studied dictation has a different purpose... It is used to help children "see" correct writing modeled (puncutation, usage, spelling...) and then have them imitate it from memory. I think it is a valuable exercise to develop good mechanics, but I don't believe it will help with developing the writing process. SWB uses dictation primarily to teach the writing process while incidentally improving mechanics. When a writer has a thought, s/he needs to hold that thought in their mind long enough to get it onto paper. If you can't do the basic step of "holding onto" your thought, you can't write. "Holding the thought" is the skill SWB is trying to develop through dictation in WWE. We are not born with the ability to put thoughts onto paper, this is a skill that needs to be learned. I do think some children probably learn how to do this naturally, but SWB's method helps move the process along! At least that is how I understand it :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kristavws Posted September 17, 2010 Author Share Posted September 17, 2010 My understanding is that the purpose of the dictation is to teach your child to transfer a complete thought from their mind and put it onto paper. I think having the child visually read the passage first might undermine this skill development. Have you listened to SWBs audio lecture about teaching Elementary writing? I would highly recommend it... WWE really makes sense to me after listening to it! You can buy the audio download here. That is kind of what I was thinking. Thank you for the link. I think I will try to listen to it tonight after the kids go to bed. Krista Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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