Teaching Reading with Words in Color
should then be dropped for a time, to be resumed usually at the level of the restricted language of Table 11 in the Word Building Book.21 7 Visual Dictation by the teacher (or later on by pupils who create their own sentences for their classmates) can also lead to writing. In fact, the challenge is even greater to the writer than when oral dictation leads to writing, because he must perform a double transformation within his mind instead of a single one: •
he must rapidly transform into speech (i.e. read) the sequences of signs he sees dictated visually
•
then hold the exact words (as well as the meaning) of what has been read long enough to transcribe it back into signs on his own paper through writing, made slower than reading because it requires not only mental activity but physical activity coordinated with it
Therefore, the outcome in terms of the increased power of the pupils is also greater. Visual Dictation 2 is the more valuable at this time and may involve transforming some words on the Chart with the gesture with the pointer if one wishes to complicate the challenge even more. Visual Dictation 1 using the chalkboard arrangement of signs is useful at this stage, but, as with the oral dictation leading to solution through Visual Dictation 1, it should then be dropped until the restrictions of the language met in Table 11 of the Word Building Book are met. The results of Visual Dictation should be checked by the pupils by reading aloud to others the solutions written on their papers. This (1) insures comprehension of what has been put down, and (2) uses again one medium (speech) to check another (signs), rather than the same medium to check itself—thus assisting in catching errors. 8 As an outcome of oral and Visual Dictation, either led by the teacher or by pupils developing their own sentences, the pupils become confident in 21 See pp. 75-77 and pp. 143-152.
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