For a while, I’ve been wondering about dictation: what does the activity involve and what, if any, is its value to the student?
Let’s make a distinction here between dictation and listening & notetaking. In dictation, students write down word for word what is said by the teacher, whereas listening & notetaking requires picking out the key points from what is being said and writing them down in note form. Older students are required to do a lot of the latter in class, especially in writing-heavy humanities and art subjects. Though the exercise of dictation is not used extensively, it is used in some instances such as language classes or spelling tests and exercises.
Both Dictation and listening & note taking require good listening skills. Yet, despite this, neither activities are practiced as a skill per se. It’s kind of assumed students will just ‘pick it up’.
The activity of listening & note-taking deserves its own blog - which I may attempt another day – and although dictation can help with note-taking skills, I will focus on the elements involved in dictation, its value, and the relevance of an online literacy program that practices dictation.
It’s fair to say that dictation can cause panic! When I was visiting schools and delivering dyslexia awareness trainings, I used to get the teachers to put their pen in their non-writing hand and I’d dictate a couple of sentences for them to write down. The hindrance of having to write something word for word, in the opposite hand, whilst keeping up with what was being dictated, immediately caused a mix of nervous laughter, quickly leading on to snorts of indignation and the giving up after about three words.
The purpose? To demonstrate how some students, particularly those with severe dyslexia or dyspraxia, might feel when having to do this task.
When asked how they felt doing the exercise, teachers often used the words: “anxious” “stressed” and “helpless”.
Let’s try to understand this anxiety by breaking down what’s involved. In a dictation activity we need to:
1. Listen and hold on to a sentence long enough to write it down correctly
2. Sequence the words in the correct order to produce whole sentences
3. Spell all the words correctly
4. Proofread – checking for errors.
If a student has a hidden learning difficulty or is generally behind in their literacy, they may have various issues going on that make this exercise very tricky: a weakness in short term memory; difficulties with sound processing and sequencing; weak spelling; a slower speed of processing. All these skills are needed for the tasks listed above.
So, it could be argued that dictation should be a skill that is practiced, and that there is, therefore, considerable value in an online literacy intervention program that provides dictation activities. Doing it online offers the student the opportunity to work independently at their own pace and self-check their work, which us important for the learning process.
Let’s look further into the benefits of practising dictation…
Improves listening skills
It’s easy to forget that listening is a skill that needs practice. It requires good short-term auditory memory and focus. Doing a dictation activity is a good way to practice techniques for holding on to information. Memory is something that can be improved if we use techniques. So, a literacy intervention program that has activities to guide the student on how to use techniques to improve the memory can be useful for writing and dictation. Techniques such as repeating the sentence out loud (if possible), or in the head, or visualising an associated image can make the difference between remembering and forgetting. Students can then apply these strategies to other situations and learning. In turn, improved listening skills should lead to better listening & notetaking skills.
Whole sentence writing
Practising whole sentence writing forces the student to think carefully about sentence structure and grammar as well as spelling and punctuation. Dictation can highlight grammatical and punctuation errors the student is regularly making and help them focus on tackling the errors once and for all. For young students it can help them get used to making sure every sentence has a capital letter and a period.
Reinforces spelling
Dictation puts spelling into ‘real-life’ action. It’s one thing to spell a recently learned word in a test, but does the word ‘stick’ in freer writing and at a later date? If a word is written correctly whilst doing another writing activity, that is the true test that the spelling of a word has stuck. An online literacy program that uses dictation to practice spellings previously covered is a great way to revisit words and check they are secure.
Attention to detail
Proofreading is something students usually find quite difficult and often don’t do. It requires them to slow right down and re-read their work at, ideally, half their reading speed. Often, it’s the teacher who points out errors in the writing when they are marking it, but the learning process is much more effective if the student can notice their own errors. Dictation is made for this kind of practice. So, it makes sense that a program that provides opportunity for self-checking work via dictation exercises is extremely useful.
Handwriting/typing practice
On a more fundamental level, dictation exercises are simply a good opportunity to practice handwriting or typing.
Confidence
As with any activity that we practice and succeed in improving, developing good listening and writing skills through dictation can boost self-esteem and confidence with studies.
So, after digging deeper into the subject, it does seem that dictation can be a very useful exercise. It practices: spellings; whole sentence writing, grammar and punctuation; proofreading skills; auditory memory techniques and listening skills. In turn, all this helps the student’s confidence to grow.
Now then, where’s that pen?
Hannah MacLellan worked as a Dyslexia & Literacy Specialist at Dyslexia Action for many years and now works with the Units of Sound development team. She has considerable experience working with and providing advice, training and support to schools, colleges, community centers and parents.
Units of Sound has a home version, Literacy that fits, which is designed to get parents/guardians supporting their child at home without all the training that is involved with most intervention tools used in schools.
