Dictation; to me this is a valuable step in the LEARNING to WRITE process. On this page I’m going to go through the process I have used for doing dictation with my kids. The actual WHY to do this step can be found in the “How to teach Writing” pages.
One approach to teaching dictation is let the child copy the paragraph one day, and then on another day dictate the paragraph to the child. I do not take this approach. Rather I want the child to hear the sentence, hold the sentence in his head just as he will do when he develops a sentence for the first time, hold it there, imagine how the words look, write them, HEAR the sentence, the pauses, the punctuation that is needed and place the punctuation where it should go. .
We started dictation with both boys in 3rd grade. I found for my boys that their spelling skills were a bit more solid by this point, they had copied sentences for 2-3 years and knew that punctuation was often times needed in a sentence, and I found they were ready at this point to learn a new skill. Perhaps you will find that you can start dictation in 2nd grade, or it works best toward the end of 3rd grade for you, but I wouldn’t put it off for too long. When I started dictation my kids were comfortable with copywork, avid readers, spelling of simple words was an easy task, so in my eyes they could handle the dictation.
My approach is to take a novel, a classic, open the book, pick a paragraph and read it. No, I don’t bother to prepare or spend time choosing a selection. I will sometimes aim for or avoid conversation in the selection, but that’s the only choice I make. I do not try to connect their dictation task with their grammar lesson either. We’ve used Charlotte’s Web, Moby Dick, Wind in the Willows, Ann of Green Gables, Swan Lake …. the choices are really endless. Several times I’ve returned to the same book and read the next paragraph, continuing the story for several days. Copywork came from the same book but neither boy ever copied what I would dictate the following day. They both really enjoy getting an entire chapter from one book into his copywork/dication section of his notebook.
So, I read the paragraph outloud, pausing extra long for commas, and changing my voice for different characters. I then go back to the beginning, read the first section which might be 5 - 8 words, or maybe only 2 or 3 words—WHATEVER THE CHILD CAN HANDLE, and have the child repeat these words back to me. Only after a successful repetition does he write the 5 - 8 words, including any punctuation that’s appropriate. I do not tell him where to put the punctuation now, however when we began dictation in 3rd I would make suggestions such as:
Read what you wrote. Is that the way it sounded? Did you pause there? What do we need to include in writing to indicate a pause?
Is someone talking? How do we let the reader know someone is talking?
Then we proceed with the next section, and the next,….. Finally the dictation is completed and I have the child take the book and check what he wrote to what is in the book. He corrects any spelling errors and punctuation errors. Sometimes if the selection reinforces his grammar work I will spend time pointing that out, however, sometimes the child really dislikes it when I do that.
I’ve read that you should be able to dicatate 2-3 sentences to your child before he writes them, rather than the 5-8 words that my boys do. However, they can’t hold 2-3 sentences in their head before writing them, and frankly, I can’t either. So, I’m comfortable with the 5-8 words.
We spend 15-20minutes, 2-3x weekly on dictation. Of course, after you do this several times you get a feel for how long a selection you should chose to fill only this amount of time. And then the child will be off and the selection takes 2 or 3x that 
Oh well.
For us dictation is a part of our daily routine from 3rd through 6th grade.Think of writing as a 3-step process; the writer must formulate a thought—this is narration, hold that thought in his head—this is dictation, and record it on the paper—this is copywork.
