The Power of Dictation
What is Dictation?
Dictation is simple. You say something, and your students write it down. It requires little to know planning or prep work, and easily becomes a routine your students can do with little instruction. I know what you’re thinking - sounds kind of boring though. But I promise you it's not. My students LOVE dictation because it gives them a chance to show off - and what first grader doesn’t love to show off their work?
How do i make it interesting?
It’s all about the WHY and HOW.
THE WHY: It Exercises Your Brain! You see, your brain needs exercise to grow and be healthy, just like the rest of your body. We can play on the playground or lift heavy things or run around to exercise our body - but our brain needs to be exercised with knowledge.
“EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN” always garners A LOT of buy in with my students. Kids WANT strong brains. I often have students approach me with something they’ve tried really hard on and say: “Mrs. J! I exercised my brain!”
THE HOW: My students want to know HOW the activity will exercise their brain - especially if it's an activity that could be boring for some.
So, how does Dictation EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN?
Reinforces the connection between spoken and written words
Improves vocabulary, grammar, and overall language skills. As children listen to sentences and phrases, they become familiar with correct word usage, sentence structure, and language patterns.
Encourages Active Listening Skills: Dictation requires active listening, which is a crucial skill for language development. Early readers enhance their ability to understand spoken language and process information by listening carefully to the dictated words and sentences.
Spelling Practice: Dictation provides an opportunity for children to practice spelling and commit ‘tricky’ spellings to memory.
Printing and Writing Skills: Children learn to transfer what they hear to the written form, improving their handwriting, letter formation, and overall writing proficiency.
Memory Improvement: Dictation involves remembering and recalling information. This helps improve memory skills as children need to remember the dictated words and sentences in order to write them down accurately.
Attention to Detail: Dictation requires careful attention to details such as spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure. This helps in developing attention to detail, an important skill for both reading and writing.
Confidence Building: Successfully completing dictation exercises can boost a child's confidence. As they improve their listening, spelling, and writing skills, they gain a sense of accomplishment, which is crucial for building confidence in their overall language abilities.
Familiarization with Contextual Usage: Dictation exposes children to a variety of contexts in which words and phrases are used. This exposure helps them understand how language is used in different situations and contexts.
Implementing Dictation In The Classroom:
Dictation is super easy to include in your daily or weekly schedule - and it shouldn’t take you more than 10 minutes! I do dictation in 3 ways depending on my students and what they need.
Sound Dictation - Usually at the start of the year we will do dictation with just sounds. This is super quick. I say the sound, they write it on a whiteboard. Done!
Word Dictation - Once we have enough sounds to start blending words, I switch dictation to words. I say the word, we count the phonemes together, they write the word.
Sentence Dictation - One we have enough practice building individual words, I start giving short sentences. I follow the common strategy of LISTEN - SAY - COUNT - WRITE. My sentences will get longer as they get better. I use sentences that include sight words we have learned, and sounds that we have learned. For example, if we learned the sound “ck” that week, my sentence might be “We got a snack pack.”
The count piece can be adjusted to suit the learning you are doing. If we are just doing words, we count the phonemes in the word by holding up fingers or “chopping” the word down our arm. If we are dictating full sentences, we count the number of words in the sentence. This helps students check their work and make sure they aren’t missing anything.
Dictation As An Assessment Tool:
Click to check out this awesome resource!
Once I switch to sentences, I begin having students record their dictated sentences in a handy Dictation Booklet! I created this booklet because I wanted to track my students progress over time, but I don’t have space to manage stacks of individual papers, much less to lay them all out and compare them. This booklet keeps my students’ sentences in one spot, plus it lets them look back at their old writing too! I often have students comment “look how messy I used to be!” They are always so proud to show me their progress!
I assess a few things through dictation:
Are my students using the right letters to create the sounds they hear?
Are my students remembering CAPITALS and PUNCTUATION? (Hint: no, no they are not. Is this the ultimate teacher struggle or just me?)
Are my students forming letters correctly?
Are my students able to recall the sentence?
That’s the tea on dictation. Give it a try, I’m betting you’ll love it!
CHECK OUR OUR LANGUAGE ART RESOURCES!
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CHECK OUR OUR LANGUAGE ART RESOURCES! ↓
