Using sentence dictation to practise and assess taught spelling and punctuation skills: A Year 2 Explicit Instruction intervention

Daily contextualised sentence dictation was used for Year 2 students to practise, and the teacher to assess, taught spelling concepts, capital letters and full stop usage in an Explicit Instruction (EI) intervention. Conducted in a mainstream setting, it supported all students learning to spell, including those with a learning difficulty (LD) and an English Learner (LL). Results showed that students who received EI in spelling and punctuation constructs followed by sentence dictation did significantly better than comparison students who continued with their usual spelling programme. Randomly selected intervention students deemed below average (BA), average (A), and above average (AA) spellers by their teachers were interviewed post-intervention to ascertain their feelings and opinions on the dictation components of the intervention. The positive findings presented here provide a body of contemporary research that supports using EI and incorporating contextualised sentence dictation to improve students’ understanding and practice of spelling and punctuation concepts