McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling-Book, Revised Edition · Lesson 134 · Part 5: Longer words and special spellings
134. Dictation: alter and altar
Goal: Your child writes the book's sentences from dictation with correct spelling, capitals and punctuation.
You'll need
- The book page for this lesson
- A slate, small whiteboard, or paper and pencil
What's in the book
“Dictation Exercises.” A paragraph of sentences.
The lesson, step by step
Talk about the tricky words
Sentences with pairs that sound alike or nearly alike: alter and altar, ballot, ballet and ballad, seller and cellar.
Find these words in the sentences and talk about what each one means.
Read the sentences together
Read all the sentences aloud together. Some of them:
They propose to alter the place of the altar.
He cast his ballot for mayor.
The wine seller lived in a cellar.
Ask your child to spell the tricky words in each sentence aloud before you go on.
Write from dictation
Close the book. Read one sentence at a time, slowly, in short parts. Read the whole sentence once more at the end.
Your child writes it with a capital letter at the start and the right mark at the end. Do four to six sentences.
Check and correct
Open the book and compare letter by letter, including capitals, commas and periods. For each misspelled word, your child spells it aloud and writes it correctly three times.
Quick review
Ask three or four words from the hard-words list, or from the last lesson if the list is empty. Words spelled right twice in a row can come off the list.
Afterwards
Dictate the remaining sentences of this lesson tomorrow.