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I have read all the archived posts I can find on spelling and dictation. I want to see if I have this right. Is the crux of it that my children will internalize rules like "doubling the p in tap before adding ing" simply through dictation and copy work?

This just makes me so nervous!

Former teacher talking : )

And I worry about EVERYTHING for my son with learning disabilities! : )

When we did the spelling lists in Beyond with my oldest, by the end of each unit, she would have a lightbulb moment and say, "MOM! All these words have short vowels and they had to use two of the last letter to add the ing!". Self discovery equals learning in our house! Now, had I told her that rule was the focus of the week, she never would have thought about it. Dictation is the only thing in the world that has truly got this child spelling. She never had phonics, b/c she was a born reader. She can sound out words though...amazingly, somehow. But she can't spell worth a flip! LOL Dictation, done consistently improves her spelling beyond measure...it doesn't just mean she is getting all the dictations correct, but it goes into her other writing as well. She could ace every. single. spelling test. Prior to HOD when we were trying out all sorts of spelling programs. She even placed into 4th or 5th grade spelling in Spelling Power, BJU, and SWO! She aced them all! But never did I see it go beyond the workbook until HOD.

Yes, you have that right. I know, I'm a former teacher too, and those lists are hard to give up (I actually did Spelling Power with about 30 students, 8 levels running at a time, oh my - what a nightmare to track!) How I wish I had known about CM's methods back then. Dictation works. Truly! My ds was born several months premature, and he had several years of in-home speech therapy. Spelling was not a natural thing for him, though like Tamara's dd, reading just clicked! Go figure! Anyway, the combination of copywork and dictation has turned him into a writer that rarely makes errors. I think the difference is first learning the method of look at a word written in black on a white card, turn card over, write word, check it immediately against model, immediately erase it if wrong, repeat process until the word is spelled right, and repeat process for each word is a great way to train the mind to look for "what looks right". The rest of the LA box activities for spelling use the words in sentences, again as copywork, training the mind to see what looks right contextually. CM's methods work, but they seem deceptively simple. They are not - they have depth! Anyway, next learning to see words within context - studying entire sentences and passages over time and writing entire sentences and passages over time makes spelling click within dc's own writing. This is the ultimate goal of spelling, so it's worth the effort! But it does take some time, and it is important to follow the plans for how to do it. The dictation HOD has chosen was used in schools here in the U.S.. Each level builds upon itself, so there is not the "test on the words and forget them" thing going on. I think you will be very pleased with the CM methods of teaching LA - just be willing to give them a try and some time - I think you'll see the results you've been wanting to see.

In Christ,
Julie