heartofdakota.com

Hello. My son is in his first year of homeschooling. He is nine. I tested him on the spelling words and he did not miss one. He whipped right through it. I noticed the dictation is to be used if the spelling in not challenging enough. I looked at the words for the dictation and they seem about 2nd grade level. Is this correct? He is a third grader and has tested 4th grade level in grammar and spelling (coming out of Abeka). What are my options here? I am afraid to abandon the dictation because we have never used this style. Is it going to set him back if I use dictation for his spelling? Can I order the next level up for Dictation Day by Day? If so, I dont know where to find these books?. Any advice would be so appreciated!

Thank you

Renee

Hi Renee, welcome to HOD! You and your little guy are going to have a great year in Bigger!

On the dictation, there is more to it than it appears at first. It does look quite simple. However, spelling is only a part of the dictation process. The passage is to be studied in such a way that dc can virtually close their eyes and "see" the passage. Then, as we dictate it to them sentence (or phrase) at a time, they are to reproduce it exactly as written. Spelling, capitalization, periods, commas, quotations, etc must be exactly as the original or they will do that passage again the next day until it is perfectly reproduced. When my dd first began dictation, she looked at the passage and looked at me as if to say, " are you serious???". (She was doing the preparing guide, I can't remember which level dictation we began with). Anyway, she did the first two or three days perfectly on the first try, but within the first week, she was missing commas, or something similar and had to start re doing them. She (and I) began to realize that there was so much more to these passages than meets the eye.

Now, all that said, you may need to start further in the list than the beginning. I have seen some here say they would start at the beginning and if they went through a week or so with no errors then they would skip ahead a few weeks until they were starting to have an error in a week's time. Maybe you could try something like that. I had two of mine combined in Bigger this year (3rd and 4th). Both of them started the dictation lists in Bigger, but my 4th grader ended up in the Preparing guide dictation before the year was over.

Hope that helps somewhat. I am sure that someone can explain the process better than I can, but I can tell you that my children have thrived with the studied dictation method. My youngers started out with HOD method, but my older did not. It has been amazing to see how much improvement she's made in spelling (and writing in general) since coming over to HOD and Charlotte Mason methods from much more traditional spelling programs.

Angie

Thank you so much for your help. I now have a better understanding of what dictation is suppose to look like.

Thanks!

Renee