Routine · Spelling and dictation
Check and fix
Teach the student to proofread their own writing: read it back, touch each sound, find the part that is off, and fix it.
- Time
- 3 to 6 minutes
- Skill
- Spelling and dictation
- In a session plan
- Dictation
When to use it
When a student spells well in drills but leaves errors in their own writing, or rushes and never rereads.
Materials
- The student's dictation or a short piece of their writing
- A colored pencil for fixes
Steps
Shown with example words: word fish.
Get ready
Pick a word the student wrote, such as fish, and one sentence.
I do
Read your own written word aloud, touching under each spelling as you say its sound. Find a part you made wrong on purpose and fix it in color.
Say: I touch and say each sound. This part does not match what I said. I fix it.
We do
Check one of the student's words together using touch and say.
You do
The student checks the rest of their words and the sentence, making fixes in color.
Student: Touches and says each word, finds errors, fixes them.
For the sentence, the student also checks the capital, spaces and end mark.
Check
Point to any errors still left by giving a hint: the line it is on. The student finds and fixes it.
If the student...
Reads back what they meant, not what they wrote.
Cover all but one word. Have them touch and say each sound in exactly what is written. When the mismatch shows, they fix it and read the word again.
Tips
- Praise each fix the student finds on their own. Finding errors is the skill.
- In a group, students can swap papers and check a partner's words with touch and say.
Example words
- Word
- fish
Original routines written by Literacy Trail. In the app, every routine is filled with your student's lesson.
Related routines
- Dictation: sounds, words, a sentenceThe student writes sounds, then words, then a sentence that you say, and checks each one.4 to 8 minutes · Dictation
- Word chain with letter tilesBuild a word with tiles, then change one letter at a time to make the next word.3 to 6 minutes · Word chain
- Segment to spell with sound boxesSay a word, push a token for each sound, then write the spelling of each sound in its box.4 to 7 minutes · Dictation
- Adding endings: double, drop, changeDecide whether to double the last letter, drop the e, or change y to i before adding an ending, then write the word.5 to 8 minutes · Dictation
Have this routine filled in for every lesson
In Literacy Trail, the session plan picks a routine for each block and fills it with the words, sounds and sentence from your student's lesson. Every plan starts with a 15-day free trial.