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Box dictations are an effective way of providing visual support for spelling for children (and adults) who experience the common dyslexia-related problem of failing to map the sounds of letters onto their shapes.
BEFORE YOU READ ANY FURTHER: Please note that this is a UK publication, so a small number of American English spelling rules will be different. You will want to skip the exercises that focus on these. In the few cases where individual words just have different spellings, you may want to have some fun with your children discussing how English people can't spell properly...!
WHEN YOU PRINT YOUR DOWNLOAD SET YOUR PRINTER OPTION TO "FIT TO PAGE" (or however this is worded on you printer driver). The pages are formatted to A4, which is about half an inch longer than US paper. OK - now read all about how this resource could help your students.
The benefits of Box Dictations:
- Children enjoy them. Given the choice, they will nearly always opt for a box dictation than a normal one.
- The presence of the boxes gives the child valuable clues as to the shape of the word and the number of letters in each word.
- The shapes provide vital clues as to which letters to choose.
- Children are more likely to put in capital letters.
- They are more likely to get the spellings RIGHT and thus increase confidence.
- The dictations follow a structured order, and can be used effectively by parents at home as well as at schools.
Hearing the words, children see the shape and the quantity of letters required to make it up, and are thus better able to segment the sound of the words into the correct letters. Box Dictations are best used with the photocopied "boxes" page either inside a transparent pouch pocket or covered by a clear plastic (eg overhead transparency -if you still have any!) sheet, or a colored overlay - definitely a colored overlay if the child has visual stress - with the child writing with a wipe-clean marker pen. Using this method, children are able to make as many attempts as they need at spelling a word until they are satisfied with the result - ie they have the correct sounds mapped onto the correct box shapes in the correct places. The author has developed this approach over many years of teaching children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties, and now an increasing number of teachers are discovering the benefits of Box Dictations for their own students.
The download combines all three books, and gives you over 250 pages of material
Book 1 Includes:
- SHORT VOWELS, BLENDS, CONSONANT DIGRAPHS, W-RULE, FF/LL/SS, VOWEL + E, SOFT C/G., -TCH, - DGE ETC.
Book 2 Includes:
- LONG VOWELS, R CONTROLLED VOWELS, OW, OY, SUFFIXING RULES, PLURALS ETC.
Book 3 Includes:
- TROUBLESOME SUFFIXES, FINAL SYLLABLES, SYLLABIC AND NON-SYLLABIC L, SILENT LETTERS ETC.