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The dictation is a very important part of the weekly schedule. The dictation given each Friday should be for the sound-family learned the week before. Note: for Level 1 the correct dictation is given under each lesson. The child should be instructed to do his/her best handwriting, but the teacher must understand that it may not be as neat as for a handwriting lesson as the child will be focussing on the spelling and at this stage may not be able to do two things well at once. However, this should never be used as an excuse to accept less than the child's best. Rubbers should not be allowed as they encourage errors (rubbing out is fun and stops the child from thinking by interrupting the flow of thought). The child should be instructed to draw a neat, horizontal line through any errors. This allows the teacher an insight into the child's thinking and discourages thoughtless errors. Follow this procedure: 1. Provide the child with a pencil and a lined notebook. Make sure that the child is seated at a suitable height in relation to the table. Feet should touch a surface.
If the child makes a mistake, it should be neatly crossed through with one line. This will discourage a child from making mistakes. Rubbers teach a child to make mistakes. 2. Make sure the pupil is familiar with all the words in the passage, including any 'odd' (irregular) words. 3. Read the passage, to the pupil, right the way through to begin with. Pause clearly at the end of each sentence. Ask the child to narrate back to you what s/he has heard. Then tell the child you will read it again, a word/short phrase at a time, giving time for him/her to write before you give the next part. Repeat each part twice if necessary, but we want to encourage the child to hold the information in his/her memory. 4. Do not help with spellings or punctuation. Turn away if you think you will be tempted to point out a mistake! 4. Once the dictation is over, ask the student to read his/her work through, out loud, pointing to each word (with finger or pencil tip) to check for errors. Check for two things:
Help as necessary until the passage is correctly spelt and punctuated. 6. It is good if the pupil can draw a picture to go with the dictation, as this helps to establish the words on each list in the child's mind. To close, some pearly of wisdom from charlotte Mason regarding handwriting: "No work should be given to a child that he cannot execute perfectly, and then perfection should be required of him as a matter of course. For instance, he is set to do a copy of strokes, and is allowed to show a slateful of all sorts of slopes and all sorts of intervals; his moral sense is vitiated, his eye is injured. Set him six strokes to copy; let him, not bring a slateful, but six perfect strokes, at regular distances and at regular slopes. If he produces a faulty pair, get him to point out the fault, and persevere until he has produced his task; if he does not do it to-day, let him go on to-morrow and the next day, and when the six perfect strokes appear, let it be an occasion of triumph. So with the little tasks of of painting, drawing, or construction he sets himself - let everything he does be well done. An unsteady house of cards is a thing to be ashamed of. Closely connected with this habit of 'perfect work' is that of finishing whatever is taken in hand. The child should rarely be allowed to set his hand to a new undertaking until the last is finished." (pg 160) Comments are closed.
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