Mila did her first dictée today and wanted to clarify a few points about the process:
Q. How would you grade someone who copied the correct sentence but didn’t circle their mistakes as instructed but corrected their mistakes with red pen?
A. I wouldn’t care. It’s the same thing, right? It’s just a little harder for you to see and so I would ask them to help my old eyes out by doing it the way I wanted.
Q. Someone copied the correct sentences but forgot to circle or do anything at all with their mistakes – for 1 sentence only out of 10 sentences?
A. I wouldn’t care. Did they try? That’s all I care about.
Q. Someone copied a sentence from the board but made a mistake (like, wrote the wrong accent)? I know these are little things but it’s good to know for my first graded dictee.
A . The way I grade dictations is really just to see if they copied it correctly, including accents. I don’t care if they circle the mistakes and all that so much – it’s the accuracy of their copying. It’s not about finding out what they did wrong, certainly but what they did right. So if they just copy it correctly I am happy and then they are happy. They get judged all day in their other classes. That’s enough.