The pp had a nice idea - those titles are good books!

That would be a nice way you can stall starting DITHOR. Or, you can always ease into DITHOR Level 2/3 too. Can he do the Level 2 Book Pack? We started that with our 7 yo, but kind of did it half-speed. We just read a few pages one day, and then the next day we read a few more pages and did the DITHOR lesson. This allowed us to ease into it. With the writing in the Student Book, I wrote for him first. Then, he took over half the writing as copywork (I wrote half his answers on the paper for him, and wrote the other half on a markerboard which he then copied). By the third genre, he took over all of the writing. This let him read fewer pages each day, and gave him time to focus on building writing skills within the DITHOR Student Book, and new reading skills DITHOR teaches (i.e. genre study, story element focus, Godly character traits, etc.). As far as the spelling, if he is able to do all of the week's activities with a list of words very easily and has been through at least one year's worth of words, he could probably begin dictation Level 2. HTH!
In Christ,
Julie