Quotes About This Product

Michelle Morrow has written some excellent notes on the importance of dictation in the life of your child's learning. It is to your detriment if you try to skip past these notes at the beginning of the book and launch straight into the first lesson. These introductory pages help you to organize your thoughts on dictation, give the importance of preparing a passage and have great tips for how to tackle different genres of literature. All of this gives you the foundation you need to make copy work and dictation a regular part of your week, without the stress and hassle of not knowing where to look next. One of the stated aims of this guide is that it will whet your child's appetite for more. Perhaps it will encourage you to get the book from which the extract was taken, or read more about a topic. I think we will be doing some of those things in our household as we go through it together. This review is glowing and I usually like to mention the things I didn't like about a resource as well. I don't have much to say on this point. I think Michelle gets the balance right. She gives guidance but does not script each lesson for you. This suits my style but you may look for more detail. If you do prefer a more scripted lesson, this resource will still aid you. Take more time to digest the introductory pages, perhaps plan out a few of the lessons yourself using the notes at the start to guide you. Your child will benefit from the more individualized planning that you do. The only other "down side" to this guide is that I didn't have it sooner. I would have loved it a couple of years ago. Thanks Downunder Literature for making this resource available now and blessing current and future (home) educators with your labours. Jocelyn James

The goal of this book is to teach you how to apply the useful method of dictation based on the teachings of Ruth Beechick and Charlotte Mason. It also gives suggestions to help you extend this resource to cover other areas of language arts study. The dictation lessons are all based on excerpts from whole or ‘living’ books, dating from 1769-2007. They include: classic fiction, poetry, songs, biographies, and studies of nature. These extracts introduce your student ‘mind to mind’ with the author. They are educational, encouraging, uplifting and will bring delight to you and your students.

We hope that, in using this material, you will be introduced to some wonderful books and writings of which you were previously unaware.

Age Range: 8-12