Dictation (2024)

Key Information

Focus

Phonics

Spelling

Writing

Appropriate Group Size

Individually

With small groups

What is dictation?

Dictation is the process of writing down what someone else has said. With young children, dictation offers a way for a parent or a teacher to record a child’s thoughts or ideas when the writing demands surpass writing skills. Dictation provides a chance for an adult to model many writing behaviors including handwriting, matching sounds-to-letters to spell words, and sentence formation.

Why use dictation?

It allows students to watch as an adult writes using many conventions of writing, such as letter formation, punctuation, spacing between words, and more.
Teachers can model how to listen to sounds in words and write the corresponding letters.
It prvides an opportunity to model that speech can be written down and read back.
Dictation can be used across the content areas.

How to use dictation

Basic steps

Ask your student to draw a picture of something of their choice — their family, a house, their pet, or another concept that the child is familiar with.
Then ask your student to say a sentence or two about the picture, for example “Our dog is brown.”
Write the child’s words on the bottom of their picture and read them back.
As you write, model a clear sound to letter match. “We read a book about the moon. I’m going to write the word mmmmmmoon. What sound is at the beginning of moon? What letter makes that sound?”
Encourage your student to read the sentence too.

Try a group story

Group stories can emerge from a shared class experience like a field trip or school assembly. Here’s how to do an interactive or cooperative writing activity:

Start by brainstorming a title.
Write down the children’s ideas. If necessary, prompt a sequence “What happened first? Then what did we do?” and so on.
Record the sentences as the children dictate them.
As you write, model a clear sound to letter match. “We read a book about the moon. I’m going to write the word mmmmmmoon. What sound is at the beginning of moon? What letter makes that sound?”
When the story is finished, read the story aloud with your students.
Read it several times, then ask if anyone would like to read it by himself. Give everyone a chance to read.
Later, copy the story on chart paper and display it in the classroom.

Watch a lesson on cooperative writing (whole class)

Students write a story together with their teacher, using dice to determine how many words to add to complete each sentence. (Balanced Literacy Diet: Putting Research into Practice in the Classroom)

Watch a lesson on interactive writing about a read aloud (whole class, kindergarten)

The teacher leads her students in a group writing activity about the characters and character traits in a recent class read-aloud book, Munching Millie. (Courtney Chan)

Watch a lesson on interactive writing (small group, kindergarten)

This kindergarten teacher guides students to say words slowly, listen to themselves, and record the sounds they hear. Embedded in the lesson is instruction on letter formation, left to right tracking, and learning names. (Fairfax County Public Schools)

Watch a demonstration on moving from drawing to writing (kindergarten)

Get tips on how to help your young writers transition from drawing to writing. In this example, the teacher begins with picture captions and then moves to words and sentences. Invented spelling is allowed. (Learning at the Primary Pond)

Differentiate instruction

For second language learners, students of varying reading skill, and younger learners

Vary your expectations for the length of dictation based on a child’s language and/or age.
Strategies such as this enable children from other cultures to bring their different experiences into the classroom to share. Sharing dictations through whatever means will enrich the other students’ experience.
Dictations with the whole group in the form of a class story may serve to familiarize students with the strategy.

Use across the content areas

Science

Children learn to describe and care for plants and animals, recording their findings in science journals through pictures, dictation, or kindergarten-style writing.

Social Studies

Ask your students to summarize a read-aloud on a social studies topic. Write the student dictations on chart paper. Summaries can be read by the whole class.

See the research that supports this strategy

Some of the writing research that involves dictation comes from a whole language perspective. Our instructions for using dictation encourage a more explicit approach to using the strategy.

Children’s books to use with this strategy

A large, slightly frumpy family travels to visit their equally large and frumpy relatives to share food, conversation, and a good time, proving that there’s always room for one more! The relatives’ visit is humorously chronicled in the lively illustrations and understated text of this Caldecott Honor book.

Book Details

The Relatives Came

Cynthia Rylant

Illustrator:

Steven Gammell

Age Level:

3-6

Kitten’s First Full Moon

Kevin Henkes

Age Level:

3-6

Genre:

Fiction

Do you think things would be better if you were in charge? Duck thinks he can do a better job than Farmer Brown, but once in power he soon tires of the duties and responsibilities of leadership. So he decides maybe he’s better off writing his autobiography – which he does on a typewriter that clever readers will recognize from another book by this talented team.

Book Details

Duck for President

Doreen Cronin

Illustrator:

Betsy Lewin

Age Level:

3-6

Genre:

Fiction

After a fire destroys their home and possessions, Rosa, her mother, and her grandmother save their money to buy a big comfortable chair. Suffused with warmth and tenderness, A Chair for My Mother celebrates family love and determination. A Caldecott Honor book. Spanish version also available.

Book Details

A Chair for My Mother

Vera Williams

Age Level:

3-6

Genre:

Fiction

This story of an Inuit child testing the limits of her independence, and a mother who reassuringly proves that a parents love is unconditional and everlasting. Beautiful illustrations of Alaska and the characters convey the cultural richness of this timeless story.

Book Details

Mama, Do You Love Me?

Barbara M. Joosse

Illustrator:

Barbara Lavallee

Age Level:

3-6

Genre:

Fiction

What icky creature looks the same from both ends? The worm, of course! For the first time ever, get the insider’s view of life from this creepy crawler’s perspective. He lives underground with his family, eats his homework and does his best to annoy his sister — documenting it all in a diary. Simple illustrations are the ideal complement to the understated humor (though nonetheless laugh-out-loud tone) of the text.

Book Details