FREE Dictation Resources for Grades 2nd-8th {Charlotte Mason Basics}

I love Copywork and Dictation for teaching Language Arts!  It truly is a natural way to teach children how to structure a sentence and spell correctly.  Only exposing children to correctly spelled words, then having them copy and dictate those words in sentences that have meaning makes our Language Arts study easy and rigorous at the same time.

As someone who started off using a Traditional style of homeschool, when I wanted to switch to Charlotte Mason's style I had to ease into it and doing Language Arts this way was probably the last thing on that list of things to do like Miss Mason.  It's funny how I used to think that the more daunting the lesson the more effective it was, not true!  It almost seems too easy to teach like this!  And it is! And, why not!?!  Lessons should be enjoyable for both the student and the teacher.  

The Why's and How's of Spelling and Dictation:

Ambleside Online has been an invaluable resource to our homeschool journey and all of these links are to their website!

Spelling and Dictation excerpt from Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschool Series Volume 1: Home Education written in Modern English HERE.

Ambleside Online's Language Arts Scope and Sequence, where they give an overview of what Charlotte Mason would have taught for Language Arts at every grade level.

The Parents' Review article on how to do a dictation lesson Step-by-Step. (There are four steps, and that's how we like it!)

Okay, now that you know the importance of dictation and are equipped with the knowledge of how to run a dictation lesson, let's get to the resources already!

Dictation Day By Day is a series of books by Kate Van Wagenen.  They are now in the Public Domain and were published from 1909-1916.  She was a teacher in New York City, so the words are spelled in American English.

There are quotes, poems, and living book excerpts to copy and dictate.  Although, Miss Mason didn't suggest dictation until 10 or 11 years of age, the 2nd grade in these books are really easy enough to have the kids get used to dictation.  Dictation is something my son has done with his dyslexia therapy since he was 5, so I feel comfortable with starting at 2nd grade with short passages like the ones found in these books.

Here is a breakdown of the books from Archive.Org

Dictation Day By Day: A Modern Speller Second Year

Dictation Day By Day: A Modern Speller Third Year

Dictation Day By Day: A Modern Speller Fourth Year

Dictation Day By Day: A Modern Speller Fifth Year

Dictation Day By Day: A Modern Speller Sixth Year

The Modern Speller Book Two (5th-8th grade)

Now, you can download all of these as a PDF and, as I have just discovered, print and bind them on your own. Say what!?!  This information is changing my LIFE and you can find the how-to HERE and it's cheap or I wouldn't be sharing it with you! :-)

In this post she uses a ginormous stapler to bind the pages, but I read on a forum where someone had just sewed down the middle with regular thread and a regular sewing machine. I have not done this yet, but I think it could be a great handicraft to do with the kids.  Although, not sure how fun they would think printing and binding books we had to use for schoolwork would be.

Blessings,
Ann

End of the Year Wrap Up

This marks the end of our fourth year of homeschooling!  We are done with 5th, 2nd, and Kindergarten and every year posts new challenges for us and by the end of the year I am amazed at my children's accomplishments.

Kindergarten always makes me nervous because everything is new.  I am always nervous about teaching the kids how to read, but I have never invested into a phonics program.  I just teach them in a way that is natural for me and for them.

With my youngest, we did not teach her the names of the letters at all when she was little, but called the letters by their phonetic sound instead.  This made teaching her how to read so much easier.  For instance, she would see the word BAT and sound out the letters B-A-T, there you go she just read that word.  Teaching her to read was easy-peasy and now she can sound out bigger words on her own just fine.

2nd grade was super easy this year.  I think the only thing my son really struggled with was rounding numbers.  I have no idea why that concept was so hard for him, but we spent time and time again going over it until it finally clicked and I wanted to celebrate with a ticker-tape parade when it did!  He is in 2nd grade, but finished 3rd grade math.

I also have never purchased a math curriculum.  I feel comfortable teaching them on my own and the math programs I have looked into have seemed like more review and not as challenging as I would like them to be.  I may change my tune once we have to get into Algebra!  We just use Khan Academy as a way to keep tack of what they are learning in math.

My 2nd grader has also accomplished being able to sound out words.  This may be an easy concept for most kids, but he has dyslexia, so this is a HUGE milestone for us.  His ability to break apart a word in to syllables has improved thanks to his wonderful tutor and his daily lessons, exercises, and therapy.  He is now confident in reading, something that he wasn't at the beginning of the year.  As a mother and his teacher it makes my heart warm to know that he has not lost a love for reading just because he has to deal with dyslexia.  He has to work twice as hard to achieve what most people would call "normal" results.

5th grade this year was interesting since we just fully implemented the Charlotte Mason method there was a learning curve, not just for me but for the kids too.  The younger ones dealt with the change more easily, but my 5th grader had to re-learn some things from doing things more traditional though our previous years.

Narration was tough for him at first, not so much with the younger kids.  We ended up breaking his readings apart into very small sections and having him narrate one sentence at a time.  He has improved over the year though, but it has not become second nature to him yet.

We are going to have a short break for Summer and start up again with school soon, but I cannot wait as I learn more about Charlotte Mason I want to incorporate her style more into our homeschool.

Blessings,
Ann