Silent Dictation

Ms Cressida Abela and Ms Leanne Cesare did a Silent Dictation with their respective classes and wished to share the process with us.

The aim of this activity is for students to listen, read, improve their spelling and punctuation skills as well as to work out a gap fill.

Students are lined up outside and given a number; either 1 or 2.

Ask number 1s to remain on one side and space out students so that there is at least 1 metre between them. Number 2s should be facing them with another metre between them.

Number 1s will be readers whilst number 2 will be writers. The readers must read out the text bit by bit as silently (using a mask did the job for us) so that their partner can write down the text.

Once they are finished, the reader and the writer must work together to fill out the gaps. Social distancing can be kept during this stage.

The first team to be ready will be winners.

Usually we would allow them to swap roles but thanks to COVID this was not possible so keep in mind the number to alternate roles another time.

Once students go back to class, they can check the text with a handout / PPT slide.

Teach-this.com have a section on dictations with lots of ideas on how to do them.