Dictation We do dictation once a week to encourage children to write. The focus is

on children segmenting a word into its sounds e.g. red is made up of r-e-d.

A dictation includes words children can sound out and also common words that they are working towards memorising.

We are aiming to do 2 sentences but if you feel your child can try 3, go for it. At the same time, if they are getting tired/frustrated after 1, just focus on 1 sentence.

Read the first sentence a few times to your child and get them to say it back until they have memorised it. Once they have the sentence in their head, they should be able to sound out and write it independently in their red jotter.

They might need a reminder about capital letters, full stops and finger spaces but encourage as much independence as possible.

If they have managed this, try the second sentence.

Then draw a picture to check they can read and understand what they have written. This is an important step – encourage your child to read the sentence first and draw it without your help – this checks their understanding of their own writing.

If they can do cursive and joined up handwriting – great. However, this exercise is less about handwriting and more about the skills of segmenting words into sounds and getting it on the page so don’t worry too much about handwriting.

See a picture below for how it would look after – but remember, this exercise is not about your child copying a sentence, but rather working out how to write it independently.