Can someone walk me through the French "dictée"?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I'm pretty Charlotte Mason-ish and so I really would like to use the French method of Dictée for my son, who is bilingual. But can someone walk me through it? What age and stage for what type of dictée, do the French use studied dictation or is it not studied beforehand?

 

In preparation, I figured I'd work on spelling the really obvious words, like pronouns and invariables, then we'd launch into a CE1 dictée book. I'm hoping these books have an introduction that explains the HOW to do dictée though!

 

Any help?

[Guest merylkatz]

HI,

 

My kids all attend a Lycee...if I remember correctly the dictees began in CE2 (3rd grade) they were handed out on Monday and the kids practiced them during the week. The dictee was given on Thursday.

By CM1 (4th) they did this the first 1/2 of the year and about the middle of the year they switched to getting them the day before.

Now in CM2 (5th) they still have dictee on Thursday but there's no prepartion.

 

It's not clear from your post if you speak French, but if you don't the dictee will be very difficult for you to give. It's you/the teacher orally reading a passage and the child writing the correct words, if you don't have the correct pronunciations your child will not be able to write the words correctly. My French is in the early learning stages and it's impossible for me to practice dicteewith my children.

 

That said, I have someone who helps my kids sometimes. We've ordered the Cahier du Jour/Cahier du Soir Dictee books and other materials from Amazon.fr

 

I hope this helps.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Thank you, yes, that helps a lot! My French is fluent, but I will probably still have my (Swiss) husband record himself giving dictées so that it's perfect and I just have to press a button. :-)

 

I'm seeing some books start as young as CE1 and others later... I'm glad to hear I have a bit of leeway on when to start. It was very helpful to know when they are prepared, how long, and what grade they become un-prepared, or wahtever that's called! Thanks!

[Tiphanya]

Dictée starts in CE1 and 1 dictée goes the whole week.

For exemple :

monday : the teacher reads and writes the word (only noun) and ask the students to write them in their notebook.

tuesday : some students (the one who wants) go and write the nouns they learned

wednesday : day off

thursday : the real dictée of small sentences with all the new words inside

friday : some teacher asks creativ written from the new words.

 

the better the students are, the less preparation there is.

 

In 3e (around 15years old), the school ends with a national test. And in French there is a dictée.

As a teacher of French foreign language, a lot of school I worked for, ask to do a dictée every week.

 

 

I hope it will help you.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Yes, thank you! Last question, if you can...

 

Prior to CE1, what do students need to learn in order to do dictée? That is, obviously they need to know how to spell the other words in the sentence besides the noun being worked on- is there a list somewhere? I have a couple of CP level French workbooks, but it seems like the move from CP to CE1 is a HUGE leap in ability level.

[Tiphanya]

I am not sure I'm able to answer properly.

It's strange that you see a huge leap as this 2 years (CP and CE1) are built together with the Grande section. The children starts from learning letter, learning reading to be able to read alone.

 

In CP the main objectif is to be able to read and count.The children have to be able to read any word, even unknown word.

"Au cours préparatoire, l'apprentissage de la lecture passe par le décodage et l'identification des mots, par l'acquisition progressive des connaissances et compétences nécessaires à la compréhension des textes." official texts

 

You can have a look there too : programme officiel