Step 5: Dictation
"[Our teacher] never gave up on us. She worked one on one with us and made sure that everyone understood what we were reading.
Structured Literacy made reading and spelling fun and not stressful."
~11th grade Structured Literacy Class graduate
Step 5: Dictations and Instructional Routines
In a 50 minute lesson, we spend approximately 10 minutes spelling the concepts we just learned and reviewed in our lesson. Plan carefully and, as always, maximize practice time. This is a teaching time, not always an assessing time.
If we want a measure of mastery, students write "Check-In" at the tops of their page and we do a dictation without any tips or pointers. Students appreciate when we explain that this is really a measure of our teaching. We work until we all can do it - the goal is "an A for everyone."
To use this time efficiently, we find it essential to have established routines, organized materials, a written plan, and minimal "teacher-talk."
Dictations in Our Classroom
Student Dictation Page
From a "soft c" and "soft g" lesson.
Example of phoneme-grapheme mapping with multisyllabic Elkonin Boxes (frames?) at this step of the lesson
We often use Elkonin boxes during this Step.
Notice how we start with first "dashing-out" the sounds in the words before spelling. We read the words when finished and discuss meanings.
Practicing "making a parking spot" for every sound/syllable first.
Then spelling the word. To help establish this as a mental habit. Or just building a syllable frame (without phonemes place-holders).
Writing the dictation on the board.
Students enjoy taking turns being the experts at the board. If a peer needs to check their work, they can just look up.