Running dictation is such a good way to give kids a break from lots of input. Linda did a running dictation class today and it was during my planning period so I was able to observe. Linda asked the students to self-reflect on the activity and here are some of their thoughts:
“This exercise was really fun, and it let me understand what characters I know by heart and which ones I don’t know very well. It was also an eye-opener about how important detail is.”
“I liked this activity because it was a good way to practice remembering characters, for both the reader and the writer. I also liked that the runner and writer were able to switch places, and I learned that I can read and understand all of the words, but I had to refer to books for a lot of the character writing, like “pizza”.”
“I thought that the running dictation game was very fun and educational, but also difficult. I learned that I need to work on being able to write more characters, not just read them. There were many characters that I knew, but many more that I found that I didn’t completely know how to write. For example, I didn’t remember how to write “likes” in characters, and I think that this shows that I need to work on remembering characters that are more common, but that I may have forgotten over the summer. I also need to work on being able to write “invites” and “with”.”