Dictation - do spaces count?

[Larica]

We just started dictation with DD7. She had to do passage 1 twice because she forgot a period. Too funny...at bedtime she was reciting the passage to me by heart and telling me she thought she could move on. We did it again and she got the period, but this time her spacing was off. "King ring wing" became kingringwing. I had her correct it, but do you count it as an error and have her do it again a third time? Maybe that's the beauty of dictation, to teach things other than spelling? Spacing has been a consistent problem for dd, much more than spelling. Thanks for your help!

Blessings,
Erica

[LynnH]

I would have her do it over. Dictation is so much more than spelling. Since she struggles with spaces this will help her to see that they need to be there in order for the words to be understood. The more she does this in dictation the more natural it will be to her. I love that with dictation they learn to spot when something doesn't look right because they have spent time studying things that are written correctly. My ds doesn't struggle with spelling near as much as he does the punctuation. He often misses passages based on that alone. Indenting the dictation also counts if it is indented in the manual.

[my3sons]

Yeah, I'd have her do it again. I know, it's hard to do. But, I have found out (the hard way) that it is in the "doing it again" that bad habits get replaced with good ones. Just encourage your dd that it is not uncommon to do passages twice. In this case, perfection is expected, so that's why several tries may be needed, especially at first. LynnH makes a great point about indenting - my ds missed indenting maybe 3 days in a row. Do you know why? Because before that, he missed it every day, and I let him erase it and move it in and move on. The day I "cracked down", he repeated the same passage 3 days in a row (because I'd taught him the pattern of don't indent, mom tells you to indent, erase and indent, and move on). After the 3 day stint, he has very rarely forgotten to indent since, and better yet, he indents in his own writing too. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie