Every teacher wants their students to succeed. Not one teacher out there hopes that their students will perform poorly. So… if there was a simple, easy to implement process that would take your students’ passing rate from 50% to 96% you would jump right on it. Right?
Well, here is Shantell Berrett Blake, Reading Horizons Teacher Trainer and Dyslexia Specialist, sharing why a simple strategy called dictation can dramatically boost passing rates by reinforcing the pathways that are needed for effective working memory (a deficit for many struggling readers).
This video will show you how to tweak the way you present information to maximize student performance – especially the performance of struggling readers. The best part? It’s so easy to implement:
How to implement this simple and powerful process of dictation:
Step 1: You (as the teacher or tutor) say the word twice (this can be a word you are having the student read, or a word that is part of their spelling or vocabulary list).
Step 2: Have the students say the word back twice.
Step 3: Have the students write the word once.
Step 4: Have the students read the word once (by having them mark the word, decode it, and then read it).
Results:
Here are the results of one teacher that was trained by Jay Kelly (as mentioned in the video), after using this process for just 2 weeks:
- 25 students in her mainstream 6th grade class.
- 18 mainstream.
- 7 receive special services.
- Normally about 50% (12-13) of students pass the vocabulary tests.
- The only thing she did differently in this case was to introduce the words using dictation and give the test using dictation.
- This time 96% (24/25) passed.
- All 7 special services students passed.
- The only student who didn’t pass refused to say the words back.
The only student who didn’t pass refused to participate in the process.
How’s that for powerful results? From 50% passing rate to 96%! And the only student who didn’t pass refused to participate.
We’d love to hear the results of any teacher that tries this strategy!!
