Spelling dictation allows children to apply the sound-spellings you’ve taught in your phonics lessons. Keep reading to learn best practices for this important activity!
When you hear the word dictation, you might visualize an old-school boss dictating a letter to his efficient secretary, who is madly typing on a typewriter.
But today I’m talking about spelling dictation.
What is spelling dictation?
This is when you dictate words and/or sentences to your students so they can write them on their paper. (Some teachers even dictate sounds, and have their students write the graphemes.)
It’s very important that you have pre-taught all the sound-spellings and high frequency words included in a dictation exercise.
In general, spelling dictation is not a test (although you might use it that way at the end of the week). Instead, you provide immediate feedback so students are sure to spell correctly (even if erasing is required).
YOU’LL LOVE THIS PRACTICAL BOOK!
Looking for an easy-to-read guide to help you reach all readers? If you teach kindergarten through third grade, this is the book for you. Get practical ideas and lesson plan templates that you can implement tomorrow!
Why should you include dictation exercises in your phonics lessons?
Decoding (sounding out words) and encoding (spelling the words on paper) go together.
It only makes sense to tie spelling to the phonics skills we’ve taught.
Otherwise, spelling becomes a memorization game … and we all know how that goes. You always have those students whose diligent parents help them work hard all week to ace the test … and then they proceed to spell the words wrong the following week.
Let’s avoid this all-too-common outcome by tying spelling and phonics together.
How to do spelling dictation
1. Prepare a list of up to 5 words and 1-2 sentences that you will dictate. Make sure the words include the most recent sound-spelling you’ve taught. The sentences should include review words as well.
2. Provide a white board or worksheet for students to record their work. White boards are more fun and less time-consuming, but a prepared worksheet allows you to have a record of student work and encourages proper handwriting. You might want to switch between the two, depending on time constraints. A good practice might be to use a white board every third or fourth session.
3. If you are preparing a worksheet in advance, I recommend doing the following for word dictation: Draw a line for for each phoneme so students can write a single grapheme on each line.
4. After you dictate each word, write the correct spelling so everyone can see it. Have students check their work and rewrite the word correctly on a single line next to their original spelling (no lines or sound boxes this time).
5. Start small with sentence dictation; it’s exhausting for young writers. Gradually move from 1-2 sentences, and increase the length of the sentences as your students are ready.
6. If your students are doing dictation on a worksheet, prepare a set of lines for each sentence (one line per word.) After you dictate the sentence, have students repeat it as they point to one line for each word. They may need to repeat it again.
7. After students write a sentence, have them check it using CUPS.
- C: Capitalization: Does the sentence start with a capital letter? For older students – are proper nouns capitalized?
- U: Usage: Does the sentence make sense? Have them read it aloud to make sure they didn’t miss any words.
- P: Punctuation: Does the sentence end with the proper mark? For older students – are other punctuation marks used appropriately?
- S: Spelling: Are all the words spelled correctly?
8. After checking their work with CUPS, have students rewrite the sentence.
A sample dictation lesson for the digraph CH
Something important thing to remember
Start small!
My new decodable books series (coming soon!) includes a simple dictation worksheet for each book. Because the page pictured above is for the first book, the page includes just four words. Pages for later books also include a simple sentence.
Check out these posts to learn more about spelling dictation:
- Spelling dictation with sounds, words, and sentences – Learning at the Primary Pond
- Spelling dictation with sentences – All About Learning Press
YOU’LL LOVE THIS PRACTICAL BOOK!
Looking for an easy-to-read guide to help you reach all readers? If you teach kindergarten through third grade, this is the book for you. Get practical ideas and lesson plan templates that you can implement tomorrow!
Did you know?
When you join our online membership, The Measured Mom Plus, you’ll receive instant access to 2000+ math and literacy resources for Pre-K to third grade … including hundreds of phonics games, centers, and worksheets!Check our the rest of our phonics series!
Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Part 6Part 7Part 8Part 9Part 10
Free Spelling Games
Get this fun variety of sample spelling games from the membership site! The download includes resources for spelling CVCE words, long vowel teams, and multi-syllable words.
Kellie Pace
hello, Where do we get these spelling dictation worksheets?
Heather Groth, Customer Support
Hi Kellie! We are currently working on a set and will have it ready to sell in the fall! If you’re on our email list you can look for an email all about it when it’s done!
Carol
Thank you for another very helpful post. It was so useful to see a dictation lesson in action in the video – a big thank you to your super student too! 🙂
Anna Geiger
Thank you so much, Carol! :))
Dewie
Anna, thank you for your time researching, assembling and then recreating this hands-on dictation practice. It helps me enormously. I love all of your resources aand have decided to join the waitlist Teaching Every Reader but it said it is coming soon on Oct 4th, 2021. I am not quite sure if I am on the list yet.
Heather Groth, Customer Support
Hi Dewie! We’re so glad you’ve been enjoying our resources. We added you to the TER waitlist, so you’ll be sure to hear when the course opens next!
K. Carrier
‘Making words’ is a wonderful program to use with phonics, spelling, sounds, ect.
Word Families by Judy Lynch
Making words by P. Cunningham and D. Hall
Anna Geiger
Thanks so much for sharing!
S K
I can’t wait for your decodable books to become available. I’ve had the feeling that my children needed exactly this kind of work but I don’t have it worked out to a science the way it looks like you do. I’ve been starting the idea by having children fill in the missing letter from a word that I dictate to practice letter sounds.
Looking forward!
Anna Geiger
What you’re already doing sounds wonderful – a great scaffold until they’re ready for the whole word!
ROLAND HAWBIBATA
Thanks a lot for sharing your tips to help young students work on new words! I will use it with my students in France.
Anna Geiger
You’re very welcome, Roland!
Danthaylia
I love to spend time reading through your emails. This is the third one in a row that definitely caught my attention and after going through the content I either learned something new or I was reaffirmed of practiced I have loved to use.
Thank you .
Anna Geiger
Thank you so much for the kind words, Danthaylia!
Brandi
Do you have this print le for free or for sale? I love this and would love to do this with my son!
Anna Geiger
I don’t because changing the number of spaces for each sound and word in the sentences is tricky; it would really depend on what words and sentences you were dictating. I’d have to include a lot of different options in a file. But if I can figure out an easy way to do this, I’ll add it to the post. 🙂
Elisabeth
I loved seeing this in action! This is exactly what I need to work on with both my kindergartner and first grader at home to help them through the new and review words they are working on! Thank you!
Anna Geiger
You’re very welcome, Elisabeth! I’m so glad this was helpful!