dictation

[christina]

I'm needing a little advice about dictation. My son, who is 11, has been completing level 4 this year. In the fall, he seemed to be placed correctly(usually repeated each dictation lesson atleast twice), but as the year progressed, he started to struggle more. He usually needed 3-4 times to get it correct. We have now taken a break for the summer, so I thought I would rethink my placement level. I'd like to give a little info about him. He deals with ADHD and stuggles with the physical part of writing(but can write very neatly when motivated). He is bright, but struggles in these areas. I know much of his difficulty is attention related, so I'm really not sure what to do. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Christina
Mom to 2 wonderful boys(ages 6 & 11) adopted from Korea

[LynnH]

Are you having him write the bold words on a white board? Also the word right before the punctuation and then the punctuation? This strategy has helped my ds and also he will say out loud something like "ok 3 commas, one after book, one after school, one after horse and one period after home" It seems to help if he verbalizes it. Is he mostly missing spelling or punctuation? My ds struggled about 3/4ths of the way through level 4 also. I don't know why. He had been doing fine and then seemed to hit a wall and then towards the end of level 4 was doing fine again. The only other suggestion I have is that my ds also struggles with the physical act of writing so he has always typed his dictation. I use wordpad so there isn't spell or grammar check turned on. This seems to make a big difference for him because he can focus on just the spelling and punctuation and not making sure it is neat.

[christina]

Thank you Lynn. Can you suggest a good typing program. My son completed the Dance Mat Typing when he was 9, but tested at a very slow rate at the end of the course. Because of this, he still doesn't want to type his work. I had planned on working on typing again this summer.
Christina

[LynnH]

My ds actually types pretty fast with the good old 2 finger method, but I want him to try and type with 10 fingers so he has started with Typing Quick and Easy. It is no frills, but it does have some games built in. I thought he would think some of the other programs were too babyish. So far so good. It gives him a accuracy score and a wpm score after each lesson. After reading things about dysgraphia and typing I am going to have him work on the correct way of typing by using the typing program, but when he is doing his work for HOD I will let him type however works.