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How do you teach your kiddo to study the passage? My boys tend to want to glance, read it once, and then write. They are surprisingly good at dictation, however, I want to teach them better study skills. I tend to point out punctuation marks, call particular words to their attention, point out capitals, etc. Is this the teaching that I should be doing? In essence I am modeling how to study the passage. Perhaps there is a point at which they will be able to do these things on their own and I should simply continue modeling for them.

I do point out those things or I will ask him what does he need to be aware of and have him tell me those things. I also make him write all the bold words on the white board and also any other things that might cause problems. Often he will write the word with the punctuation so that he gets it visually in his head. He would prefer to skip all this, but as the passages get harder I am finding he needs to do these things to get it in his head.

Well, here's what we started doing today:

DS reads his to do list off of his white board. I instructed him to study the dictation passage by reading through it, writing the bolded words on the whiteboard for practice, and taking note of the punctuation and capitalization throughout the passage. He handled that with flying colors completely independently. This is a step in the right direction for us! Thanks for listening.

It sounds like you are already sort of there but will just throw out what we do in case that helps. I have them copy the passage to practice it, you know as copywork, that helps a lot. Other thing that really I think makes it more fun is we make a game out of finding punctuation and even better of you can explain why it is there or spelling that may be a challenge. And I have also done a reward (and by reward I mean tiny but well celebrated maybe even just special recognition) if they study it well and get it all on the first try perfect or if they do several in a row type thing. My kids like anything that can be turned into a challenge or a game. I try to keep competition stuff to something where they are sort of competing against themselves for a goal rather than each other. That way no matter where they are at they can all participate even if they have learning issues.

Sounds like you are already doing great just wanted to offer what we did in case it helps.

Maybe this will help. It helped me when I was unsure about how to help my ds.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5333&p=39199


Dawn

dawntx wrote:Maybe this will help. It helped me when I was unsure about how to help my ds.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5333&p=39199


Dawn

Dawn,

Thanks for sharing the above link. Can you try again? It's not linking me (it isn't highlighted).

abrightmom wrote:

dawntx wrote:Maybe this will help. It helped me when I was unsure about how to help my ds.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5333&p=39199


Dawn

Dawn,

Thanks for sharing the above link. Can you try again? It's not linking me (it isn't highlighted).

I'm not Dawn, but I think this will do the trick...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5333&p=39199

The above link explains a method I used about a year ago with Wyatt. I just thought I'd give an update, as that's always interesting. We used that method for a few months, and ever since then, he has gone back to studying his own way, which usually involves him noticing the punctuation (I sometimes hear him counting the commas, periods, etc.), as well as practicing with his pencil on paper any words he may be prone to misspell. It helps him cement in his mind when it "looks right" he says. He is moving forward well in his dictation, missing an average of 1 passage each week. In essence, he is still studying the way I described in the previous link, but he is doing it mentally instead. If he begins missing 2 passages or more a week, I'll probably require him to use the marker board method again. I just thought I'd share this, as I think the ultimate goal is for dc to be able to study their dictation passages without our assistance. Some training is probably necessary, but eventually we want to bow out and have them take ownership of studying independently for their dictation. Unless they are missing too many dictation passages each week, they probably are using good study methods on their own - HOORAY! But if they are struggling and missing passages consistently, then helping them develop a better method of study, or reevaluating if they are placed in the proper dictation level, are good things to try. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie