Studied Dictation

Dictation with a touch of art.

 When this semester began, I knew I wanted my fifth grader to get some more writing practice.  Her handwriting isn't the best, but I was more concerned that she get more practice in actual writing.  She is a girl that is very creative, until it is time to retell what she has read or learned in her own words.  Ironically, this only happens with school work.  Most of the time she has no problem being, as her older sister calls her, a "walking Google."  She can spout off all sorts of facts about subjects that have captured her interest.  But, writing this information down seems to be more difficult for her. 

Even though we have taken a semester off of Heart of Dakota, I kept up with the dictation.  My ten year old has advanced through fifty-two dictation passages in the 77 days of school we have completed.  While she usually has to repeat a passage once a week or so due to an error, she is progressing well.  Every day, after she completes the dictation passage, she draws a picture to go with the passage.  I find it cute, and she loves being artistic. 

Dictation is a unique and old-fashioned way of teaching spelling, grammar, and sentence structure.  Truthfully, dictation made me very nervous.  My older daughter despised dictation.  She was happy with her spelling lists.  She is a good speller, so I let her choose.  If the lists worked for her, we went with it.

My ten year old gets sick of lists and workbooks.  She enjoys dictation.  It's fast.  It's effective. She has a passage a day.  They get progressively more challenging as time goes on.  She studies the passage for a few minutes, spelling the words to herself, taking note of punctuation and the general sentence structure, as well as learning the meaning of the words as they are used in the context of the passage.  After a few minutes of study, I "dictate" the passage to her, usually phrase by phrase, and she has to write it perfectly.  She can't misspell words.  The punctuation must be correct.  I even expect it to be neat, with decent handwriting.  

The passages are taken from the Heart of Dakota guides.  Heart of Dakota took the passages from an old spelling program entitled Dictation Day by Day by Kate Van Wagenen.   These passages were published in the early 1900s, and are not available for free in the public domain.  The passages are sorted into levels, with a student moving forward at their own pace, mastering the passages of one level before advancing to the next.  This is how I love teaching... in a mastery based way

My ten year old is doing well in dictation.  I wasn't very consistent at first, and would do dictation as well as a spelling program.  However, I can see the genius behind the choice as we progress.  Words are learned in context.  Further in the dictation levels, quotes and passages from classic literature are added. 

"The whole secret of spelling lies in the habit of visualizing words from memory, and children must be trained to visualize in the course of their reading".  Charlotte Mason

The passages begin as short ones.  Eventually they will be long passages of beautiful literature.  Dictation continues into High School for Heart of Dakota, giving the child exposure to incredible literature passages in writing, not just in reading.  As the child advances, he or she will gain incredible writing and spelling skills by examining great works of literature and seeing the words in context, not simply by getting a new word list every week or completing vocabulary worksheets.

Dictation is more challenging than spelling individual word lists because you have to hold the sentence in your head.  This means that you can't just learn the word, place it in short-term memory,  pass the test, and then forget.  The words in one passage will be reused in different sentences in a later passage, repeating until the words are part of the student's vocabulary and spelling them is natural.

When my daughter misses a passage, that means she has an error or errors.  Perhaps she misspelled a word. Perhaps she forgot punctuation.  There isn't a big deal made about it.  She didn't "fail."  She simply repeats the passage the next day.  She studies what she missed and reviews what she got correct.  The point is for her to succeed, even if it takes multiple attempts.  She is to be challenged, not overwhelmed or feeling like she failed in some way.  Slowly, as she progresses through the passages, she will improve her writing, spelling, and vocabulary.  Studying literary passages will also help her reading and speaking.

Imagine, if you will, year after year of slow progress through high quality passages, writing and mastering them, advancing until you reach graduation.  These are students that will be well-spoken and write extremely well.  Spelling.... writing is so much more than spelling. Writing well begins with having the ability to think clearly.  Using studied dictation helps achieve that aim.  Some of the quotes come from Tennyson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William E. Channing, Benjamin Franklin, Wordsworth, Abraham Lincoln, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Longfellow, Shakespeare, and more.

To show a bit of the progression of work, here are some samples of the dictation passages at different levels:


Level 2:


I am going out to pick the corn.  It is ripe now.  Two women will help me.  born  horn

Level 3:
Nearly every day the rose's pretty face was washed by the dew.  Was the dear little flower happy when it felt the drops of dew?

Level 4:
Robin Hood was captain of the band.  Little John was second in command.  Friar Tuck was another one of Robin Hood's men.  Maid Marian also lived in the forest and cheered them all with her sweet music.

Level 5:
Her brain soon became very active, and she was taught grammar, and arithmetic through fractions.  She gained a knowledge of geography from a raised map.  She was fond of sewing and knitting and never spent an idle moment.

Level 6:
Grown people do not always like to see the snow whirling about.  They know it means more coal for the furnace.  Boys cannot use their bicycles and must often shovel snow, and yet most of them prefer this season. 

Level 7:
There are some Eastern countries where many unhappy missionaries have been attacked by soldiers who resented the introduction of Western ideas.  Those who escaped death were often separated from their friends, kidnapped, and conducted across the frontier.  There they received instructions never to return.

Level 8:
In accordance with an old custom, the hereditary kings of France were always crowned with their standards raised in the cathedral at Rheims.  Charles, the Dauphin, felt confident that, if he could be crowned as the rightful sovereign, his claim would then be absolute and unquestioned.

As you can see, studied dictation is so much more than a list of words.