Questions about dictation

[MistyP]

We started homeschooling with HOD with LHFHG and then moved on to BLHFHG....then life happened....We had twins born and I went back to work full-time as a RN. After weighing out our options we continued homeschooling but with a more traditional, independent method. My girls have done well with it and are great independent workers; however, I am now cutting back to working part-time and would love to get back to HOD.

I plan on starting LHFHG for K & 1st for DD #3 (5) & #4 (7).

I would like to start Preparing for DD #1 & #2. They will be 9 & 10; in 4th & 5th grade. I'm a little concerned about starting dictation with them. They have never done dictation before and neither have I!! It would be a big change and I don't really know how to go about it. They are avid readers and do very well in school so I'm not worried about them being able to do it; but not sure how to "teach" it and move into it gently.......

Thanks!!

[LynnH]

Are you talking about studied dictation which is what you so for spelling or written narration. I ask just because of your comment about them being strong readers. Studied dictation is very easy to do. There are instructions in the manual. Basically they study the passage and then you read it off a phrase at a time while they write it down. The tricky thing will be to figure out what level to start them on. You want them to be able to do it with all spelling and punctuation correct. If they miss anything they redo it. The ideal level is the one where they are only having to redo something 1x a week or at the most 2x's a week. I hope that makes sense.

For written narration Preparing is the guide where they start that and it starts slowly and guides them in the process of doing a few sentence written narration following the reading. Preparing even starts out by giving them the opening sentence. There are instructions in the Appendix for you and also another set for the dc of things to be aware of. There is the same thing for oral narrations which they also do.

[my3sons]

LynnH gave awesome advice here! I would not worry one bit about dictation. It is by far my easiest thing to do each day. After many years of other spelling programs, I cannot tell you how thrilled from my head to my toes I am to open my guide and do dictation each day for spelling. It is a welcome change! AND - the results have been impressive. Year after year of HOD's studied dictation, working through Levels 2-8, has taken my poor speller to a super speller, and my great speller to an awesome speller. It takes 5 minutes a day. It also improves dc's spelling within their own writing, as well as their accuracy of writing sentences properly. Just read through the few paragraphs before the dictation passages in the Appendix, and follow them exactly. You will be fine. Try it out, and share what you find here. We can help you tweak the level to find what's a good fit.

In Christ,
Julie

[MistyP]

Thank you Lynn & Julie!

They could probably do CtC but I don't want to stretch the switch too much! DD #2 (4th grade) is quicker at school than DD #1 so Preparing will probably work out fine for us.