instead of dictation

[EmilyGF]

I've been using studied dictation with my kids for the past year and my oldest (ds13) hates it passionately.

For us, the purpose of dictation is to be exposed to new words, interesting grammar, good sentence structure, and mechanics. The idea is that by studying it twice a week, and then writing from dictation, he internalizes a lot of good things in a fairly small amount of time. This has worked well for dd11 and dd9. Ds13 just hates it, drags his feet, and then "forgets" to do it. Even if I force him to do it, there is only so much one learns when one is hating the task the whole time!

Any suggestions on a time-frugal way to accomplish these goals that isn't dictation? We've talked about the purpose/etc but it doesn't seem to motivate him to change his attitude.

Thanks, Emily

[almondbutterandjelly]

Separate grammar book and a separate vocab program?  

[EmilyGF]

18 minutes ago, perkybunch said:

Separate grammar book and a separate vocab program?  

Seems pretty costly in time compared to dictation...

Emily

[Farrar]

It is more time costly, but hey, if he chooses that route? Maybe let him.

Vocabulary.com is free and not terrible. For mechanics, you could have him do something like Editor in Chief or Daily Paragraph Editing. For the exposure to good sentences bit, maybe he could read something more? Add to his required reading a little?

[Kuovonne]

Can you find out why he hates studied dictation? Are the passages too hard? Are the passages too easy? Does he get bored with the same passage all week? Do you teach the passage to him, or do you expect him to teach it to himself? What is your source of the dictation passages? Does he pick out the passages from books he likes, or do you pick them out, or do you have a book of passages?

How is his original writing? Does he have problems with mechanics in his original writing? If his mechanics are okay and he has a writing program, why not drop studied dictation?

You could also look into sentence combining exercises. Sentence combining exercises have most of the benefits of dictation and copywork while providing a bit more of a challenge.

My DD has never liked copywork and barely tolerates cold dictation. I never tried studied dictation with her because I’m pretty sure it would be a flop.

[EmilyGF]

54 minutes ago, Farrar said:

It is more time costly, but hey, if he chooses that route? Maybe let him.

Vocabulary.com is free and not terrible. For mechanics, you could have him do something like Editor in Chief or Daily Paragraph Editing. For the exposure to good sentences bit, maybe he could read something more? Add to his required reading a little?

Point taken. I'll look into those resources.

[EmilyGF]

5 minutes ago, Kuovonne said:

Can you find out why he hates studied dictation? Are the passages too hard? Are the passages too easy? Does he get bored with the same passage all week? Do you teach the passage to him, or do you expect him to teach it to himself? What is your source of the dictation passages? Does he pick out the passages from books he likes, or do you pick them out, or do you have a book of passages?

How is his original writing? Does he have problems with mechanics in his original writing? If his mechanics are okay and he has a writing program, why not drop studied dictation?

You could also look into sentence combining exercises. Sentence combining exercises have most of the benefits of dictation and copywork while providing a bit more of a challenge.

My DD has never liked copywork and barely tolerates cold dictation. I never tried studied dictation with her because I’m pretty sure it would be a flop.

He finds most things too easy (but then overextends himself and gets frustrated). He only sees the passage twice a week; once to study and then once when I dictate it to him. He teaches himself, which he does in most things and does well. I chose dictation from that week's reading that is exceptionally well-written and has hard vocabulary (he's got quite the vocabulary himself).

I don't understand the value of cold dictation. It seems more like a test than a learning exercise. Could you explain it?

Emily

[Targhee]

What about putting him in a Killgallon book? And lots of really great lit to read. He needs his own thing.

[Kuovonne]

8 hours ago, EmilyGF said:

He finds most things too easy (but then overextends himself and gets frustrated). He only sees the passage twice a week; once to study and then once when I dictate it to him. He teaches himself, which he does in most things and does well. I chose dictation from that week's reading that is exceptionally well-written and has hard vocabulary (he's got quite the vocabulary himself).

I don't understand the value of cold dictation. It seems more like a test than a learning exercise. Could you explain it?

Emily

 

Since he finds most things easy, he might think that studying the passage is pointless busywork. The vast majority of the passage should be easy for him, and he may have difficulty picking out what is challenging in the passage. After all, it might not look challenging when he reads the passage versus writing it.

Do you ask for output for grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary? I have a hard time picturing how a student self-teaches these things without output.

In cold dictation, you preteach the concepts, but not the exact passage. It is mostly useful for spelling and mechanics—preteach any words that are hard to spell and any punctuation rules. Then dictate the passage and have the student apply the concepts.

[Lori D.]

Just a different perspective here, and I could easily be way off base, but, a 13yo is usually beyond the need/benefit of dictation. Most of the grammar benefit of dictation occurs in the elementary grades. Somewhere along about 7th-8th grade or so, the average student wraps up the last of the grammar instruction, and moves towards actually putting the grammar into practice with writing different types of assignments. In other words, I think you would be totally fine with dropping the dictation, OP. :)

Some ideas for time-frugal substitutions to dictation:

For the vocabulary aspect: What about including a word a day from SAT Vocabulary Cartoons to your morning together time with all 3 students, so everyone takes 2-5 minutes to learn a new word in a fun way? Or do a page a day 2x/week from something like English From the Roots Up or Vocabulary From Classical Roots? You could shoot for 2 (or 4) words per week, and do a 2-5 minute review of a handful of past words on another 1-2 days, so touching on Vocabulary 3-4x/week for a total of about 10-12 min. a week. Doing it aloud with all students together at one time streamlines your schedule.

For the writing aspect: You might just drop any grammar review program and move to sitting down with DS once a week for 10 minutes, pulling out DS's own writing assignment, and have him proof-edit (look for errors and grammar usage/mechanics), but also have him work with his own writing -- add a missing transition sentence or topic sentence; add a detail or additional sentence of support; polish a rough sentence; think of a more specific, vivid word to substitute for a general word, etc. That would require you to spend 5 minutes in advance reading DS's assignment and coming up with something to work on, but it would also move DS into the habit and practice of revising his own writing -- which is really what we're after as an end goal. And, that total of 15 minutes of your time once a week (5 minutes prep + 10 minutes working with DS) is probably not too much longer than the amount of time it takes you to dictate the paragraph to DS now. Just a thought! : )

For the grammar review/practice of proof-editing/mechanics: If still wanting something for this aspect, what about dropping the actual re-writing of the dictation (streamlines time and removes some of what is so annoying to the student), and try something like Grammar With a Giggle: Giggles in the Middle (gr. 5-8) or The Chortling Bard (gr. 8-12). You could try doing the middle school level with all 3 students all together. Or, since the younger 2 are happy with what they are doing, perhaps try the high school version with DS. That might be very appealing to him to be doing high school level material ;). These programs are a paragraph a day that builds up an entertaining story over the course of the year, with 2 new vocabulary words in them, some errors to find and correct (subject/verb agreement, punctuation, capitalization, homophone misuse or spelling error, etc.), and a quick review of a grammar usage concept.

When I used Chortling Bard in high school with DSs as a 2x/week grammar review just to keep concepts fresh for their Writing, I just photocopied the paragraphs, cut them apart and taped two per page in a spiral notebook. DSs would use proof-editing marks to make corrections (no re-writing), and while they did that, I spent 2 minutes writing the paragraph on the whiteboard, and then we'd go over it all together with them calling out the errors they'd found, and I'd correct on the whiteboard until they had found them all. Then we would read/discuss the 2-sentence grammar review of the grammar topic, learn the 2 new vocabulary words, and in 5-8 minutes we were done and moved on with our day. Because we did it all together, it streamlined students, but it also didn't allow for "forgetting to do it", since I was right there doing it on the whiteboard with them. lol.

BEST of luck in finding what works best for your family and your time-schedule! Warmest regards, Lori D.

[EKS]

How about imitation? 

Give them a sentence or paragraph and have them write their own using the structure of the first.  Here is an example.  The first is the first paragraph of Cannery Row, the second is my son's imitation of it when he was 11yo, and the third is what I came up with when I did the same assignment at age 17.

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.  Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky-tonks, restaurants and whore-houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop-houses.  Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody.  Had the man looked through another peep-hole he might have said: "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing.

My Ferrari 365/B in my own driveway is art, a money eater, a car for the driver, an icon, a stereotype, a guzzler, a beauty.  My Ferrari is a beauty and soul, the money ingester and gas guzzler , and speeding tickets in the glove box, Ferrari red and a wooden steering wheel, bad reliability, worn seats and worn breaks.  Its design is, as an owner once said, "ugly, idiotic, and as pointless as stepping on a bug," by which he meant his car.  Had he looked at my car 43 years later, he would hav said, "fast, beautiful, and something you can have in your garage," and by that he would have meant the same thing.

The Colorado River in the Grand Canyon in Arizona is a lover, a friend, a geologist's concerto, a fluid gesture, a time, a reality, a thought, a space.  The river is serene and surreal, kaibab and redwall and tapeats and bright angel, side canyons and waterfalls and molded rock, blue sky on orange cliffs, sand bars, boatmen and drunken stories, and mile high walls, and mesquite and margaritas.  Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "Dominy, Brower, Watt, and Abbey," by which he would have meant Everybody.  Had the man looked on in a different century he might have said, "scorpions and ravens and catfish and blue herons," and he would have meant the same thing.

[Lori D.]

Just. Wow, EKS. Writing flows in the veins in your family generations. lol.

[Kendall]

3 hours ago, EKS said:

How about imitation? 

Give them a sentence or paragraph and have them write their own using the structure of the first.  Here is an example.  The first is the first paragraph of Cannery Row, the second is my son's imitation of it when he was 11yo, and the third is what I came up with when I did the same assignment at age 17.

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.  Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky-tonks, restaurants and whore-houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop-houses.  Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody.  Had the man looked through another peep-hole he might have said: "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing.

My Ferrari 365/B in my own driveway is art, a money eater, a car for the driver, an icon, a stereotype, a guzzler, a beauty.  My Ferrari is a beauty and soul, the money ingester and gas guzzler , and speeding tickets in the glove box, Ferrari red and a wooden steering wheel, bad reliability, worn seats and worn breaks.  Its design is, as an owner once said, "ugly, idiotic, and as pointless as stepping on a bug," by which he meant his car.  had he looked at my car 43 years later, he would hav said, "fast, beautiful, and something you can have in your garage," and by that he would have meant the same thing.

The Colorado River in the Grand Canyon in Arizona is a lover, a friend, a geologist's concerto, a fluid gesture, a time, a reality, a thought, a space.  The river is serene and surreal, kaibab and redwall and tapeats and bright angel, side canyons and waterfalls and molded rock, blue sky on orange cliffs, sand bars, boatmen and drunken stories, and mile high walls, and mesquite and margaritas.  Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "Dominy, Brower, Watt, and Abbey," by which he would have meant Everybody.  Had the man looked on in a different century he might have said, "scorpions and ravens and catfish and blue herons," and he would have meant the same thing.

I've done bits of this kind of work here and there and I really want to do more of it. I found it too time consuming as I would spend forever looking through good books trying to decide what a perfect sentence would be that was appropriate for their abilities.  This post has inspired me to try again. Do you have a file of sentences/paragraphs? Or do you just grab a book and somehow quickly pick one? Sorry, I am hijacking this thread I guess, should I start a new one?

 

[EKS]

42 minutes ago, Kendall said:

I've done bits of this kind of work here and there and I really want to do more of it. I found it too time consuming as I would spend forever looking through good books trying to decide what a perfect sentence would be that was appropriate for their abilities.  This post has inspired me to try again. Do you have a file of sentences/paragraphs? Or do you just grab a book and somehow quickly pick one? Sorry, I am hijacking this thread I guess, should I start a new one?

 

Yes...well...see, the only time I ever did this was this one time--and I stole the idea from my AP English teacher!  But, as you can see, the exercise was memorable enough that I came back to it all these years later (it helped that the work of a few students, including mine, which is why I have it, was published in the school literary magazine).

Anyway, I'd like to do it more too.  It's interesting because you have to be creative within a very specific structure and you have to know enough grammar to be able to even understand what that structure is.  You can see that neither my son nor I really nailed the structure exactly, but I think that's ok.

[Kuovonne]

2 hours ago, Kendall said:

Do you have a file of sentences/paragraphs? Or do you just grab a book and somehow quickly pick one? Sorry, I am hijacking this thread I guess, should I start a new one?

 

The Killgallon books are setup exactly for this purpose.

[EKS]

16 minutes ago, Kuovonne said:

The Killgallon books are setup exactly for this purpose.

My problem is that I've bought a number of them and found them to be uninspiring.  But yes, this is a good point.

[Janeway]

23 hours ago, EmilyGF said:

Seems pretty costly in time compared to dictation...

Emily

I never would have found dictation to be a good substitute for a good grammar and vocab program. Grammar and vocabulary should be happening even if you are doing dictation.

[EmilyGF]

Apparently he liked doing dictation from McPhee's Control of Nature last week because he just (shock!) brought it to me and asked for a dictation passage. So maybe I've found a winner. McPhee has a lot of complex language and imagery and is writing about a subject he enjoys. We'll see what happens... Maybe there isn't a crisis after all. 

Emily

[Kendall]

18 hours ago, EKS said:

My problem is that I've bought a number of them and found them to be uninspiring.  But yes, this is a good point.

I just have the middle school one and I will take a harder look at it, but this was my feeling about them also. 

[Bluegoat]

At that age I'd drop dictation and look at a bit more formal grammar and using it to write.  13 is a good age to start looking at the structure of language.  If he's doing serious second language study, you might not bother with much English grammar though.  I'd try exposure to new words just through reading.