Dysorthographia and dictation: how to adapt this much-feared exercise?
Dictation is the school exercise that children with dysorthographia dread the most. It combines every difficulty at once: attentive listening, phonological encoding, orthographic memorisation and application of grammatical rules, all in real time. Here is how to adapt it so that it remains a useful teaching tool without becoming a source of distress.
Why is dictation so difficult for children with dysorthographia?
Dictation simultaneously calls on all the skills that are impaired in dysorthographia: converting the sounds heard into written letters, memorising the spelling of words, applying grammatical agreement rules, and doing all of this in real time without the chance to immediately re-read. For a child whose skills are already impaired individually, combining them at the same time creates an overwhelming cognitive load. Dictation results therefore reflect very poorly the real progress made by a child with dysorthographia.
Prepared dictation: the most accessible alternative
Prepared dictation is the simplest and most effective adaptation. The child receives the text in advance, the day before or a few days earlier, and can study it, identify the difficult words and memorise the rules that apply. This preparation reduces the cognitive load on the day itself and allows the child to show what they are genuinely capable of producing when given some time.
Gap-fill dictation: an interesting teaching alternative
Gap-fill dictation, where some words are already written and the child must fill in the blanks, makes it possible to target specific types of errors to work on. It can be used for homophones, agreement or conjugation, depending on the current objectives. It is less exhausting than a full dictation and often makes it easier to identify the child’s specific gaps.
Negotiated dictation: learning together
Negotiated dictation, where pupils discuss spelling together after having written individually, is a particularly effective teaching tool for pupils with dysorthographia. It allows them to hear other people’s reasoning, compare their orthographic representations and correct their errors in a collaborative and non-stigmatising context.
Not marking spelling in other subjects
In subjects other than French, the spelling mistakes of a pupil with dysorthographia should not affect their mark. This provision is set out in the PAP and requires no special equipment, just the goodwill of teachers. For resources on adapting dictation for DYS pupils, lesdys.fr offers practical guides for families and teachers.
