Dictation or Spelling lists for Bigger??

[mae357]

I just started looking through the Bigger guide today. The instructions for the spelling/dictation portion say to choose ONE of those choices. How do you decide which to pick? Does anyone do both? Can you do spelling one week and dictation the next? It seemed to me after reading a bit that you should use the spelling lists if your child isn't ready for dictation but how do you know if they are ready or not???

thanks!

[MomtoJGJE]

Are you using Beyond right now? If so, which spelling list are you using?

If you are using the second spelling list, then you'd use the dictation in Bigger. If you are using the first spelling list then you could either choose to use list 2 or dictation. I'd say if your dc is having any trouble with list 1 then you should do list 2, but if they are moving through with no trouble then move on to dictation unless you think they need more practice.

Of course they need to be able to read to do dictation too.... If you were doing phonics and list one with Beyond then I'd say it would probably be beneficial to do list 2.

[psreit]

We will do Bigger in the fall. My dd did spelling list 1 in Beyond, so she will do list 2 in Bigger. She is a very weak speller. List 2 in Beyind is the same list in Bigger. The words in list two follow the same pattern as list one, but are more difficult. I'm not 100% sure, but I think if you are using list 1 in Beyond, it would be recommended to do list two in Bigger before dictation is started. I could be wrong. If you are already doing list two in Beyond, then definitely start dictation in Bigger.

[my3sons]

Good advice already! I'd not do both. It would be overload and not nearly as effective as consistently doing one of the options for the year. If you have not done Beyond the year before, you could try to do the first dictation passage with dd as a trial run, being sure to carefully follow the directions for doing it in the Appendix of Bigger Hearts. If it has a bunch of mistakes, I'd do Spelling List 2. Otherwise, in general, if she is 7 yo, I'd lean toward Spelling List 2. If she is closer to 9 yo, I'd do Dictation. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie