What Effect Does the Dictado Has on Writing?

1. What Effect Does the Dictado Has on Writing? Edilberto Cano Literacy Squared Institute Estes Park, CO June 28th, 2012

2. Instructional Context

3. Context: Literacy Block First Grade

4. Literacy Instruction Time Allocation Minutes per Day--Grades 1-3 Literacy Instruction Minutes

5. Initial Questions about Implementation- 2010 Are teachers following the standard procedures for the Dictado in Spanish and English in the first grade? Are teachers following the critical reminders in the implementation of the Dictado in Spanish and English? Do we see a positive impact in the implementation of the Dictado in English and Spanish in students’ writing samples?

6. Student A- Writing Sample 1st Grade Spanish

7. Student B- Writing Sample 1st Grade Spanish

8. Student C- Writing Sample 1st Grade Spanish

9. Dictado Analysis- First Grade- 2009-2010

10. Dictado Analysis- First Grade- 2009-2010

11. Teacher A- English Writing Sample- 1st Grade

12. Teacher B- English Writing Sample- 1st Grade

13. Teacher C- English Writing Sample- 1st Grade

14. Emerging Finding: English Dictado

15. Teaching Implications In first grade, increase complexity and sophisticated vocabulary over time in the Dictados both in English and Spanish In first grade, start English Dictados earlier in the school year To improve self-correction, monitor what children are producing and trying to write

16. Three Main Ideas • Quality • Meaning is at the core of the Dictado • Specific teaching points (Phrase, transition, word, and spelling and cross language connections) • Consistency • 3 times a week- MINIMUM • 15 Dictados in English and Spanish- MINIMUM • START English Earlier in the school year • Fidelity • To the implementation, recommendations, and standard procedures

17. Questions?

18. Longitudinal Analysis Writing Samples and Dictados Grades 1-32008-2011Colorado Schools

19. Research Questions • How does the quality of students’ writing samples (WRS) in English and Spanish improve from the first grade to the third grade? • What are the writing literacy skills and conventions exercised through direct instruction using the Dictado that students’ display in their writing samples in both English and Spanish?

20. Dictado Example- 2nd Grade English The Park On the way to the park,I saw a big balloon in the sky.It was one of the biggest balloons I had ever seen! Spelling Word segmentation (hyper- and hypo-segmentation) Basic punctuation (Comma, period, exclamation marks) Basic capitalization Syntactical structures (sentences and phrases)

21. Dictados

22. Writing Samples • Grades 1-3 • Years : • 2008-2009 • 2009-2010 • 2010-2011 • 17 students grades 1- 2 • 16 students grade 3 • Students took their writing samples in the month of January-February respectively

23. Spelling English Grades 1-3 Hide Made

24. Spelling- ELD and Spanish Influence Grades 1- 3 Median Scores

25. Research Findings--Phoneme LevelMedian Scores

26. Why? • Reading and writing are mutually reinforced • Students analyze what they hear to respond or to solve: • Letter-sound correspondence • Initial and ending sounds discrimination • Sequence of ideas • Word segmentation

27. Basic Punctuation Use Analysis

28. Ending Sentence Example- English First Grade

29. Unconventional Use of Periods- Writing Samples- Examples

30. No Internal Punctuation- Spanish 3rd Grade

31. Basic Punctuation (Periods)- Approximations aSame student

32. Teaching Implications- Basic Punctuation Use Dictados with more than one sentence when appropriate Craft Dictados that provides a more fluid sequence of ideas in order to provide students the support to create more complex and fluid ideas rather than just independent clauses.

33. Capital Letter Use Analysis

34. Capital Letter Use Examples- Writing Samples Beginning Sentence Random Use

35. Capital Letter Use- First Sentence Example 2nd Grade Spanish

36. Basic Use of Capital Letters

37. Capital letter Use- Teaching Implications Include in the Dictados specific rules for using capital letters for: Proper Nouns When using question and exclamations marks Acronyms Titles Emphasizing important events

38. Syntactical Structure • According to Soltero-González, Escamilla, and Hopewell (2010): • Bidirectional Syntax transfer • Use of Possessives • Subject omission • Literal Translations

39. Bidirectional Transfer- Example

40. Syntactical Structures- Bidirectional Syntax Transfer Percent of students

41. Sentence-Level--Subject OmissionPercent of Students

42. Sentence-Level--Literal TranslationsPercent of Students

43. Teaching Implications • In the Dictado, include • Use of possessives • Phrases in English • The use of pronouns • Idioms • Use of adjectives • Así se Dice strategy: • To teach literal and conceptual translations

44. Hyper-Segmentations

45. Hypo-Segmentations

46. Hypo- & Hyper- Segmentations- Approximations

47. Final Thoughts According to Bauer and Gort (2012): Students’ acquisition of literacy skills across languages are not linear and “under different circumstances are considered normal characteristics of biliteracy development” (p. 2). Therefore: Finding establishes the need for constant, sustained, explicit, and direct teaching of literacy skills across languages and across grade levels in grades K-5.