Teaching · Reading Intervention

Say it, tap it, write it, then see what to reteach.

Write down what you dictated and what the student wrote, and tag each miss by kind. The summary turns a page of dictation into the share correct, the error pattern and the one thing to reteach first.

Start a dictationWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Reading Intervention toolkit, $49 for 34 items.

The dictation record

One record per student and lesson. Use initials or a code, never a name. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Reading Intervention$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
For each lesson, the sounds, words and sentence dictated with what was written and each error tagged, and a summary of accuracy, self-corrections and the errors to reteach.
Who it is for
Reading interventionists, special education teachers and tutors teaching structured phonics and spelling.
Format
Browser form, filled in during or after the lesson. Several saved records per student; printed with the summary or as a blank dictation sheet; CSV with one row per record or a table; export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Reading Intervention toolkit ($49) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Reading Intervention space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
stampheartapwrite
Drawn for this page. Dictation runs from hearing the word, to separating its sounds, to writing a letter for each.

How to use it

  1. Start a record with the student’s initials or a code and the lesson date.
  2. Note the concept and the steps the student uses.
  3. For each sound and word, type what you said and what the student wrote, and choose the result.
  4. Add the sentence and mark the checks.
  5. Read the errors by kind and plan the reteach.

Start a dictation

What the record is for

Why dictation

Writing a word from its sounds, or encoding, uses the same knowledge of letters and sounds as reading it, and shows gaps reading can hide. A student who writes stap for stamp hears most of the word but drops the second sound of the final blend.

Tagging errors

Tag each miss by the part that went wrong, not the whole word. Two or more misses of one kind point to the next thing to teach. A self-correction counts as correct and is worth noticing: the student is checking.

What this form is not

It is not a spelling test with norms, and it does not identify dyslexia or any disability. It records one lesson’s dictation for planning.

Sources

  1. Foorman, B., and others (2016). Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade (NCEE 2016-4008). What Works Clearinghouse practice guide.
  2. Graham, S., and Santangelo, T. (2014). Does spelling instruction make students better spellers, readers, and writers? A meta-analytic review. Reading and Writing, 27(9), 1703 to 1743.
  3. Moats, L. C. Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers, 3rd edition (2020).
  4. Weiser, B., and Mathes, P. (2011). Using encoding instruction to improve the reading and spelling performances of elementary students at risk for literacy difficulties: a best-evidence synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 170 to 200.

The example student is made up. The record tracks one lesson’s dictation; it does not screen or diagnose. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.