Addison Taylor
Why is it essential to dictate to children? To speak well, you need to write correctly, and this is achieved with a lot of reading and a lot of practice on paper. When someone makes spelling mistakes, the general recommendation is ‘read more,’ but this can also be supplemented by dictation. Discover all the benefits of dictation to improve children’s spelling and writing skills.
Dictations are a great resource for improving English dictation for class 4 children. But they also have many other advantages. For example, they enhance handwriting, something that is being lost, and that also helps children improve fine motor skills.
They review the number of benefits that dictations bring to children and give some tips to use dictations correctly.
All the benefits of dictating to children
Dictations are the most traditional language activities in teaching. It consists of the student listening to the teacher tell a text that he has to reproduce by writing it accurately.
These exercises improve children’s hearing, attention, and concentration and also help their writing and spelling to be of better quality.
1. Improves attention
For a dictation to finish satisfactorily, it is not only necessary that all the words and sentences are written correctly and coherently, but it is also essential that the child be attentive all the time.
When the teacher or the parent in question relates the words or phrases and the children are writing them, they will have to be aware of how the person who dictates is written at all times, which will improve their ability to attend to explanations. Or other types of academic exercises.
2. Concentration increases
As attention is drawn, the child’s concentration also increases when dictating. Not only do they have to know what the teacher or the parent is dictating at that time, but they have to do everything they can to focus and know how the words they are saying are written.
3. Improve your spelling
When a word or phrase is typed multiple times, errors decrease. Exercising contributes to fewer and fewer spelling mistakes. When a word is spelled incorrectly and soon after it is corrected, to make a kid expert in dictation then try using 4th grade words for dictation.
In addition, as they write words that are expressed the same but are written differently: to see and have, go and fence, etc., children will have to make a greater effort to know how to write them well.
4. Help improve language
Like spelling, language is also enriched through dictations. When children are facing problems with oral descriptions and trying to write the word or phrase in question correctly, they will also enhance their writing and communication skills. In this way, the language will be complete as they do dictations.
5. Greater active capacity
Dictation is also perfect for children because it has a good rhythm. This means that although the oral presentation is slow and does not go fast, it is true that it does not stop, and children should be used to maintaining their attention throughout the activity.
6. Help self-correction
When words are repeated and combinations with g, j, b, or v for some words that have h, children often have doubts about the spelling. Although mistakes are made at first and probably will happen again a few times, children will increasingly know how to correct them by seeing similar words spelled the same. In this way, they will improve their spelling before making a mistake, or they will know how to detect the error after finishing the dictation. If you are interested or attracted by some online learning platform for English language then you should go for spell quiz for learning spellings.
What are the “steps” to practicing dictation?
When you are starting to practice dictation for the first time, it is recommended to follow the following steps:
1.- Let us write the title “Dictation nº ___.”
2.- Let us number each line to write the word, phrase, or sentence to be dictated. Remember to leave the bottom line free (since you will occupy it later).
3.- Let us ask them to be the ones who dictate to us first. In this way, they will be reading each word and being aware of how they sound and are graphical.
4.- Let’s have them copy the word or words below the line that you leave free. In this way, you will reinforce what you have just learned.
5 – Finally, let’s write again on the following page: Dictation nº ____”, and let’s dictate the words to them so that now they are the ones who write them.
6.- When you dictate phrases or sentences to them, let’s show them “beans” when naming each word, so they will become aware that each word represents an element, and words cannot be written linked to each other, but each one occupies a certain space.
