How to Teach a Phonics Lesson: Sound Dictation

Carla Stanford: This is the most magical part of the lesson is the dictation. We are going to start with sound dictation. In sound dictation it's very intentional that kids are being given the opportunity to hear a sound, think about the sound, think about how that sound is spelled, and then write the sound. And it's done in isolation. And thinking about if we give kids the opportunity to do the work in isolation, then when they move to the next part of dictation, they are really ready to go because they've had that practice. So I like to say, "Dictation every day!" That is how I was taught. The dictation every day. Kids are taking their pencil and they are putting it to the paper and they are really doing the work. In this part of the work, there's a lot of interaction back and forth, back and forth, and it's all about the work. It is not about how correct work is. So there's going to be this class community of, "We're all in this together. We are learning something new together. We're going to do the hard work. But guess what? When we learn something new, we make mistakes. And mistakes are good food. Mistakes are how we get better." So as we're doing this work, you can actually model a mistake on the board — I'll talk through that — and give your kids the grace to lean into their mistakes and say, "Okay, I messed up, but that's okay. Next time I am going to be able to get that sound-letter correspondence." 

So sound dictation is the part of the lesson that leads into word dictation. I'm going to use '-ck' as an example. And when you're thinking about '-ck', you go back to what is it that kids have to have in order to do the work. First of all, they need to be able to hear short vowels. So one of the things we could do is we could have kids listen for short vowels and write the short vowels. That is an option. Another thing we could do is have kids listen for the /k/ sound at the end of words, and then actually spell the sound /k/ after a short vowel at the end of a one syllable word with a '-ck' because that is going to be the first time for some of them, that they've ever actually put the two letters together representing one sound. Dictation is very magical. And one of the parts that makes it so magical is when we use the same paper every day with kids. So the kids know how to enter the work because every day you have given them a piece of paper where they're like, oh my goodness, I know where to write the sounds. So if I know where to write the sounds, then all my cognitive energy can be spent on doing the job at hand. And for this job today, it's going to be spelling the /k/ sound after short vowel at the end of a one syllable word. 

So this is what it could look like. Everyone would have their paper, everyone would have their pencils. I would have the board set up. We know that every day we're going to do sound dictation and it's going to lead us into our words. So I'd say, "All right, friends, now I'm going to say a word. You are going to repeat the word. We're going to tap it. And when we get to that end, we're going to repeat it, and then we're going to spell just that last sound. Get ready. Here we go. My word is sock. Repeat. Sock. Tappers up. /s/, /ŏ/, /k/, sock. The sound /k/. Oh, goodness. Wait. /s/, /ŏ/ ... Short vowel. /s/, /ŏ/, /k/. One syllable. How are we going to spell the /k/? We're going to spell it with a 'ck', hooray! So everyone on your paper right now, let's write it." And so all together, we are writing. They are writing. I am writing. I am modeling. C-K, /k/. And as they're writing, I can walk around and look and check in and give them the "good job. You guys got it." If someone flipped it, and it will happen, then we can model. "Oh my goodness. It's your first time that you've ever written this as 'ck' hooray. That comes after a short vowel at the end of a one syllable word. It's okay. Let's give it a hug." So we're going to give it a hug. That means we're going to put a parentheses around it and we're just going to correct it right above it because mistakes are good food. And when we're learning something new, we're going to make mistakes and it helps us get better. So then above it, they could write C-K, /k/. Next one. And we would do it again. "All right, next word. My word is lick. Repeat. Lick. Tappers up. /l/, /ĭ/, /k/, lick. Okay, let's go through it. /l/, /ĭ/ ... /ĭ/ ... Is that a short vowel? Yes. /l/, /ĭ/, /k/. Is that one syllable? One talking vowel? Yes. So how are we going to spell that /k/ sound? 'ck, hooray! And we could write C-K. Hooray! Everyone check your work." And you walk around and you look and you encourage, and you have them check their work up here. And then you can do it one more time. Another word. You walk through the process, you spell together 'ck'. This is not a test or a trick. We're all in this together. We get it on the board. Now, we always read back what we wrote because we really want to always partner the spelling with the reading. The encoding with the decoding. So we would come here and we're going to read it back together. And I would say, "Okay, friends, you can read your paper or you can read with me on the board, but we're going to read together. One, two, ready, go. /k/, /k/, /k/. And that is what sound dictation looks like on day one of something. 

Now let's talk about the words that I chose for the sound dictation. Here I chose only words that model the '-ck' rule because that's what we're practicing and we're keeping the super tight. We need kids to listen for short vowels. We need for them to have practice reading short vowels in their deck. We need for them to have learned the rule together, combining the knowledge they already knew to learn this new way to spell /k/. And now they're getting to just spell that last part. And so every word we're going to choose is going to give them an opportunity to practice so that the word choice is very intentional and it's not random. And it's all to support the new learning of the '-ck' rule. If this were day two, day three, I could maybe include the vowel in the '-ck' for what they are writing in sound dictation. Maybe again, I just give them the /k/ sound and they write 'ck'. Here's another fun thing to do. I could say, "Friends ..." I love this. This is really great metacognitive work and say, "Friends, today, you guys are so brilliant and I know you're ready for this. I'm going to give you a sound and I want you to give me all three ways that you know how to spell it. So get ready. My sound is /k/. Repeat. /k/." And here I would walk around and check in with them and they would say, "Oh my goodness, I know this for /k/. I know this for /k/. And now I know this for /k/." And sometimes kids will put the dash here to represent. They know that a short vowel comes before. And we could talk about, "Oh my goodness guys, this sound /k/ has three spellings. And now when you are spelling and you hear /k/, you have to think through how to make the decisions." And we could talk through all their decision making. That's another way you can use the sound dictation later in the week to support the work of the '-ck' rule. 

Sound dictation is so essential for success and more dictation because what we've done is we've taken this new pattern so they can hear it, they can spell it. So we know that they can represent the sound after a short vowel at the end of a one syllable word in isolation. So now they are ready to go into word dictation, where they're going to spell words that have the '-ck' rule in them, and they can look right at their very own paper as a reference. So the sound dictation serves as this appetizer of what's coming next with words. You have set this stage for your children to be successful as they spell this new pattern.

Narrator: Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillen Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; the AFT; the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation; and anonymous donors.