I introduce the passage with them then let them use the recording and notes for actually doing the dictation when they’re ready. I put any questions or tricky words for spelling cues on the screen as well as any special mechanics reminders and whether or not they need to use it as a sentence model. I record the dictation by reading it aloud. In the last year, we’ve moved to using Notability on the iPad for dictations. It’s a useful one to be able to transfer to our dictation habits. This is an exercise that is found in the Killgallon Sentence Composing series. Sometimes we use a sentence or two as a model and the kids write their own sentences using the same structure. Once the kids are done with the dictation, they now check their own work and make corrections, which is also a good exercise in editing. We talk about what’s going on in the passage as well as metaphors or other literary devices. I go over the vocabulary in the passage, the mechanics, the grammar. I choose our dictation passages and we do what’s sometimes called studied dictation. There’s something beautiful about working on holding the passage in your head, about using good models of writing for learning, about streamlining together literature and writing by using dictation as a bridge, by taking the time to really focus on a shorter passage out of a book. Then I found Brave Writer and started to get convinced. I wasn’t convinced that copywork and dictation would very good tools for teaching writing, but when nothing else was working, we started using them. I started out as a dictation non-believer. I see them getting faster and more fluent with getting the dictation down. I see how it has actually helped my kids get better at paying attention to mechanics. We’re in such a perfectly good place with dictation right now. ![]() However, I’ve been so appreciating lately that we stuck it out with dictation over the years. They do an okay job of it, though sometimes I feel like we’re running in place. Mushroom is working through Wordsmith because he needed to do some workbook based writing for a little while. BalletBoy is writing a fanfic mashup of Korra and Star Wars. ![]() Well, it’s all been a little perfunctory here lately with writing. Sometimes it’s not even that well-written, it’s just that they wrote it, they wrote that poem, that paper, that one sentence, that letter to grandma, that thing you thought they couldn’t write. You know the sort of moments I’m talking about, where your kids write something so beautiful and lovely that your heart goes pitter patter. We haven’t had many triumphant writing moments here lately.
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