nena3927 Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 I am trying to decide what approach to take with spelling with my dc when we officially start our new "school" year in July. My ds will be in second and dd will be in first. I already shared about my ds having some struggles with reading in a previous post so I think he could benefit more from a phonics approach to spelling vs studied dictation. My dd is an excellent reader (took off with reading after finishing The Reading Lesson about 8 months ago) and I think either approach could possibly work for her. We are HOD users and they recommend studied dictation. I REALLY like how simple it appears to be, but I don't know if I'm comfortable just having my dc memorize spelling by studying sentences as opposed to learning WHY things are spelled the way they are. What are your experiences regarding studied dictation? Is it really that great? I'm at a toss up between dictation, AAS, or R&S. Any advice??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 AAS actually includes dictation, but it's organized by concept for you. Here are a couple of blog posts on it: How to Use Dictation to Improve Spelling Using Dictation to Improve Spelling I have used copywork and dictation outside of the program to work on spelling, but I found my struggling speller needed a more incremental approach with direct teaching--and it was much easier to provide that through a program that already did that work for me. I did still use copywork and dictation to teach literary terms, and wrote about that on my blog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PentecostalMom Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 I have tried many spelling approaches over the years, including dictation. It is my firm belief that kids need to learn the why, not just the how. I learned phonics years ago when I was taught to read, my mom taught me at home before I ever entered school. As a result, I was taken out of my K class and sent to a 2nd grade class for reading and spelling. I am using AAS. Yes, it is teacher intensive, but quick. Invest the time. You won't regret it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FO4UR Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 In real (Charlotte Mason) Studied Dictation, the student does study phonics. That's a misunderstanding. By the time they get to dictations, they should know their phonics well and be at the point where they are applying that knowledge as they study. If they aren't ready for that yet, check out the blog post series below. Your dc are the perfect ages for it. http://joyfulshepherdess.blogspot.com/ Essentials in Speling (linked in my siggie) Grade 2 is an intro into both spelling and cursive. Part of this program is a daily sentence dictation. We study the words used in the sentence first, we study phonograms, we visualize, we copy, and generally use mix of Charlotte Mason methods along with more modern techniques that I have found most helpful with my own dc. (My oldest is dyslexic, and I used Spalding/O-G/Synthetic Phonics with him for years before finally writing my own thing for him. He knew phonics quite well through SWR at age 7, but that didn't help him spell...or read. Charlotte Mason addresses some key points that some modern programs do not. That said, there is a lot of misunderstanding of CM floating around the internet and through popular curricula.) In short, do not do studied dictations without studying how CM did them for yourself (Check www.amblesideonline.org ). But, it's an effective way to teach spelling (grammar, vocab, and more...) once you know how CM did it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nena3927 Posted March 27, 2015 Author Share Posted March 27, 2015 Thank you ladies for sharing your opinions. It gives me lots to think about. If it wouldn't add too much to our school day, I could do both AAS AND HOD studied dictation. I'll have to think on that for awhile but it may be doable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FO4UR Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Thank you ladies for sharing your opinions. It gives me lots to think about. If it wouldn't add too much to our school day, I could do both AAS AND HOD studied dictation. I'll have to think on that for awhile but it may be doable. I wouldn't advise doing both AAS and the dictations in HOD. Either do a separate spelling or learn to do CM dictations. To be honest though, Charlotte Mason didn't start studied dictations until 4th grade-ish. And then, studied dictation was really studied...not merely stared at as it seems to be implied from HOD. (idk, I've never used HOD.) You could take the passages given in HOD, do word studies with them, and then have her copy the passage. That would be more in line with CM's recommendations. Another key to this puzzle is that you won't want spelling to take more than 15-20 min per day. Spelling includes copywork, dictation, word studies, all of it. You will burn her out and waste precious time that should be spent reading, exploring, painting, and such. They are little, and spelling should be lots of inputting and imprinting in very small portions at this stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nena3927 Posted March 27, 2015 Author Share Posted March 27, 2015 I should have specified that if we do go with HOD's dictation, we would not start that until third grade. Right now my first grader is almost finished with the first of two spelling lists in the back of our HOD TM, and he has done great with it. I'm not really seeing it carry over in his writing though at this point. If I decided to go with AAS, I would use that with both dc starting in level 1 and would not do the spelling lists in HOD. I guess I wanted to make a decision so we wouldn't be too far behind with AAS since they recommend starting in level 1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bree Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Here's our experience so far. DS did the second grade list through HOD then the studied dictation through Preparing. He is about to start 5th grade and tests at about 7th grade for spelling. For him studied dictation has been great. This year we switched over to MFW for now and since they don't have studied dictation we are doing some AAS and I do like it in that he is learning why you spell instead of just knowing that is how you spell something. AAS does take more time than studied dictation. So truthfully I guess you should weight if you want them to know why they spell things the way they do or just know how to spell. I have terrible spelling myself so AAS this year has been really refreshing for us, but may not be necessary for a natural speller. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lungrenacademy Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 I wouldn't advise doing both AAS and the dictations in HOD. Either do a separate spelling or learn to do CM dictations. To be honest though, Charlotte Mason didn't start studied dictations until 4th grade-ish. And then, studied dictation was really studied...not merely stared at as it seems to be implied from HOD. (idk, I've never used HOD.) You could take the passages given in HOD, do word studies with them, and then have her copy the passage. That would be more in line with CM's recommendations. Another key to this puzzle is that you won't want spelling to take more than 15-20 min per day. Spelling includes copywork, dictation, word studies, all of it. You will burn her out and waste precious time that should be spent reading, exploring, painting, and such. They are little, and spelling should be lots of inputting and imprinting in very small portions at this stage. Could someone share an example of what a CM-style word study would be done? Thanks!! Leslie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reign Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 We love AAS. It works great. My girls enjoy spelling and it's working. It involves dictation weekly but the words have all been taught. We do one dictation from WWE every week. I treat it as studied dictation. That is not how it is written in the book but it's what works for us. I like getting practice with rich complex sentence structure that they have yet to reach in AAS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitterpatter Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 DD is likely dyslexic (she undoubtedly is, but we don't yet have a diagnosis). We did a couple of months worth of studied dictation during the summer of 2014 using Dictation Day By Day, which is nice in a sense that it builds of words used previous days. She enjoyed it and nearly always aced her dictations doing it this way, as she has very good short-term visual memory. However, it didn't stick for long. She often misspelled her studied dictation words outside of that setting. (The reason we even did this was to gear her up for using WWE 2, a series we hadn't previously used.) I'll be the first to admit that we've struggled in finding our groove with AAS, but it's a top-notch program, so we've stuck with it. What's nice about the dictation sentences is that they use words that have already been studied in previous lessons. After you have used it for a while, it becomes quite clear what has and has not been mastered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeeves Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 I highly recommend doing what you suggested in a previous post: using a combination of AAS up to 2nd or 3rd grade and then moving to studied dictation. We have used AAS for years (my oldest went through Level 6), but last year we started HOD and I tried their studied dictation, fully expecting to go back to AAS after a few weeks. It turned out to be a great fit for everybody from third grade on up, even for my dyslexic third grader. For him, I used AAS to teach reading and to teach him the basics of phonics. Then, in third grade we started HOD studied dictation. It has helped immensely for him to use the phonics rules to remember how to spell things in studied dictation. However, I would not do studied dictation without having a firm foundation in phonics. This year, I'll have my rising 3rd grader move to studied dictation (or I may give him one more year of AAS because he's very tactile and enjoys using the program!). I think moving them to dictation in either 3rd or 4th grade would be fine. It was fine even for my 6th and 8th graders, but I wish I had started them just a year or two earlier. Also, it was really helpful for me to know the phonics rules so that as we study the piece of dictation, I can say "see the word 'circle'? Why does the "c" say /s/? What makes the /ur/ sound? What kind of syllable is the last one? etc." That way they're applying what they know to a word they may not know how to spell. What I like about studied dictation as opposed to the dictation in AAS, is that it's not necessarily focusing on the phonogram that they just learned. It's easy to remember that "circle" is spelled with a 'c' when you have just been studying about the soft sound of 'c', but it's a little more difficult (and more profitable) to have to remember the different phonograms that can say /s/ and come up with the correct one. It's a difficult process for my rising 4th grader (who is really just getting the hang of reading this summer), but it's good for him, too. If we get stuck on some words, I may pull out the AAS for review (but I may not--depends on how motivated I am! :) ). Good luck! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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