Dictation Tips?

[farmfamily]

My daughter, who is turning 8 this summer, has been doing the studied dictation since January. She completed spelling list 2 prior to that. For about the first 50 days of dictation, everything went really well. She never missed a day - she always had everything perfect in her notebook. She occasionally asked me to repeat the sentence and I always used to do it. Later I read that it should only be said one time, so I told her I would only say it once.

More recently she has started making some mistakes - perhaps a period instead of a question mark or a misspelled word. She instantly dissolves into tears when she learns she will have to repeat the dictation the next day. This has happened several times in the last few weeks. It is the only time she has cried in school for a long time. I keep trying to explain that it's not a big deal to have to repeat it - that mistakes are part of learning, etc., etc. But she still seems very upset by it. I feel like such a nit-picker by "punishing" her by making her repeat when she has only missed one small detail and the rest is perfect. On the other hand I don't want to move her along in the dictation, because it's clear that a little more practice would help her out. I know it's not supposed to be a "punishment" to have to repeat, but that's how she seems to view it, and it's hard to convince her otherwise.

Today we started by carefully going over the spelling of the hard words, and we specifically discussed the "period, two commas, and a question mark" (all the punctuation).

After I dictated (one sentence at a time), she was begging me to say the second sentence again after she had already repeated it back to me. I told her to just do the best she could and did not repeat it. The result - she left out a few words. She put a period instead of a question mark. And there were tears... again.

So my question - how can I make this a more relaxed and enjoyable learning experience for us?

[mom23]

I don't really know for sure-we're kind of struggling with dictation ourselves here...I think you're on the right track to take time to study it with her, pointing out specific things that she's struggling to get. I think this is a major roadblock in my daughter's struggles. She doesn't really know what or how to study it; she just gives it a quick look and then sits down to try it. The only other thing I might wonder is if you're reading too big a chunk at a time? I was used to reading a whole sentence and have recently backed off to dictating only 3 to 4 words at a time for her to write in smaller chunks.

[LynnH]

I would agree that you should try breaking it down into smaller chunks. The goal isn't for them to memorize the whole passage it as it is in some classical dictation programs. You could have her write the bold words on a white board first and also any words that have punctuation following them have them write the word and the punctuation. Honestly I do repeat it if he needs me to.That doesn't happen very often but sometimes he gets so focused on making sure he remembers the punctuation he will forget the next words. I feel like the main goal is to improve his spelling and punctuation skills so if he is struggling to remember it then I help.

[MicheleW]

I have the same issue. DD (10) completely breaks down and sobs if I tell her she will have to re-do a passage tomorrow. What I have started doing (probably not proper procedure) is giving her hints if she is almost totally correct. Say she misspelled one word and missed one comma: I tell her "check the spelling of [word] and add a comma somewhere." I don't let her look at the passage again. If she can fix her mistake with that hint, I let her move on the next day. If she has several misspelled words or punctuation errors, I don't give her any hint and just have her look at the guide to fix her mistakes and we re-do the passage tomorrow. She still gets down on herself for having to repeat it and sometimes there are a few tears but if she sees that she made several mistakes, she is more willing to admit that she needs to practice it again. It just goes against all her sense of justice to do a lengthy passage with difficult words and punctuation and have to repeat the entire thing because she got one letter wrong in one word or missed one comma.

[farmfamily]

BGBC, I am doing the dictation as scheduled in the Bigger guide. I think she is making good progress with it so far. Here is a recent thread with some of Carrie's thoughts on dictation:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11844&p=85870&hilit ... ion#p85718

Other posters, thanks for the suggestions! We have put into practice only dictating short phrases and I think that will help. I like the idea of having her write out the words with punctuation, but I think she will complain about the added thing to do - do you do that with your kids? At the moment, I write out the harder words for her on the whiteboard. Today I wrote out the words with punctuation following as well. Maybe I need to turn that job over to her though!

I have given her hints before myself, though I wonder whether she is really learning the skill if she needs prompting often?

[LynnH]

Julie is the one who first suggested having them use the white board for writing the words and punctuation out. I do make my ds write out the bolded and harder words first on the white board. He doesn't like doing that, but he has seen that if he doesn't do it he misses words. I tell him it is practicing. I used to have him write the words and punctuation when he was missing punctuation. He doesn't usually miss punctuation now so I don't make him do it. He does say it out loud to himself before we start. For example he will say "ok a comma after oxen, a comma after house and a 2 periods, one after horse one after girl." I think that helps him remember. I remember in a thread that Julie also said she used to give hints and realized they weren't learning that way they would continue to make the same mistakes. I know my ds would forget to indent and I would give him hints. He still kept forgetting to indent until I stopped giving hints and he had to redo it a few times just because of the indenting and now he remembers every time.

I think another thing is that it really does help reinforce and teach dc that they are not perfect and are going to make mistakes. My ds used to get upset about having to redo and we had several talks about how he wasn't perfect, only Jesus was, and how when he threw a fit he was not showing the attitude God would want him to show. He now handles it very well when he has to redo. I also had to make sure I wasn't making a big deal if he had to redo, because I tended to show my frustration with the fact that he missed something easy.

[farmfamily]

Lynn, I think you have given great advice! I will begin having her write out the harder words & words followed by punctuation on a whiteboard. And I plan on having a little talk with her along the lines that you mention.

Thank you!