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I know that the dictation passages in Creation to Christ come from an old book. I'm wondering how much updating was done when it was printed. There are some commas that seem unnecessary. Some punctuation rules have changed in the last century. (Remember when we all put two spaces after the end of a sentence when we learned to type...and now the rule is only one? That's just an example, and obviously not relevant to dictation.)

Momofthree,

I'm so glad that you are getting a chance to use the provided dictation passages within our guides! We pray they may be a blessing to your family.

As far as your question goes, we decided to leave the passages almost exactly as they were written years ago. The only changes we made were to replace passages that were not sensitive to other cultures or to replace passages that were focused on Greek gods, etc. If we had begun editing the passages for punctuation, it would have become a continual debate as to what constitutes corrections in each passage. We could truly debate correct comma use endlessly!

From our perspective, the main goal of studied dictation is to focus on capturing the passage in the mind, holding it there, and reproducing it correctly. Another goal of studied dictation is picturing the correct spelling of words and internalizing that correct image. A final goal is to learn to proofread one's work by comparing it to the provided model. All of these goals are accomplished with the passages as written.

From a CM perspective, dictation also served as grammar/punctuation practice, since she did not use another formal grammar program until the upper forms. From our perspective, the grammar portion of dictation is just one piece of grammar/punctuation instruction, and Rod and Staff thoroughly addresses this area effectively throughout our guides.

For our boys, we have found that using the passages "as is" is producing excellent writers with tremendous proofreading skills. I have been amazed at how well my boys have learned to proofread their own work, simply through using the skill of proofreading their own passages through studied dictation and proofreading their written narrations. We have not found our kiddos having any challenges in the grammar and punctuation rule application within their own writing either, as they practice these skills so many different ways throughout our guides.

If you desire to edit the passages as you go to conform with the changing grammar/punctuation rules, you can certainly do so, but I fear you will lose the ease of use of the passages and the intended result. These passages were widely used for decades in schools across the nation and are actually not incorrectly written, rather they don't always reflect the more modernly accepted versions of the "rules" at times in a few areas.

I wish you the best as you ponder what will be best for your student.

Blessings,
Carrie

We came across a passage just yesterday that is sort of like that. It was a list of items and there wasn't a comma before the "and". That gave me a great opportunity to talk to my dc about how the final comma is optional and many people don't use it. I prefer to use the final comma because I feel it is makes the meaning more clear and told this to my dc. We decided to add the final comma in the list. So we added it in our book and studied it this way. I think areas like this where the rules might have changed just gives us more to discuss in our teaching time. BTW, I didn't know that only one space is commonly accepted after a period. I learned it the old school way when learning to type, so you'll find all of my sentences have two spaces after the period.

pjdobro wrote:We came across a passage just yesterday that is sort of like that. It was a list of items and there wasn't a comma before the "and". That gave me a great opportunity to talk to my dc about how the final comma is optional and many people don't use it. I prefer to use the final comma because I feel it is makes the meaning more clear and told this to my dc. We decided to add the final comma in the list. So we added it in our book and studied it this way. I think areas like this where the rules might have changed just gives us more to discuss in our teaching time. BTW, I didn't know that only one space is commonly accepted after a period. I learned it the old school way when learning to type, so you'll find all of my sentences have two spaces after the period.

When I was a student I was taught that that final comma was necessary and that's been hard to unlearn! But when anyone edits something I've written, that's the first thing they point out: get rid of that comma!