I can't recall myself having had a dictation when I was 6 years old (in kindergarten). I could hardly knew A B C then. I remember the only thing that made me so excited to go to my kindergarten was the playground! We could play with the sand too... :).
Here, in Saudi (perhaps other places too), kids have to do dictation / spelling. Teachers would dictate the words and the kids will have to spell. It is a huge problem if the kids can't even read. If we can't read, how could we spell? It's really impossible.
What teachers did was, they asked the kids to memorize the words. Then, before dictation time, teachers would give kids all words that will be asked during the exam. That happened in Coan's school. Her tuition teacher, Ms Shehnaaz also did the same. The only different was, Coan had a 1 to 1 learning with Shehnaaz and 1 to many learning at school.
When Coan was in KG2 (she's in KG1 temporarily at the moment), her teacher taught her animals and their babies (ie: cat and kitten). Yesterday, when Shehnaaz dictate words to Coan, she made 1 mistake. Shehnaaz asked her to spell chick. Instead of spelling chick, she spelled hen! Look at the picture below. Perhaps, she had in mind that most of other animals are mothers. So, when Shehnaaz said chick, she taught of a mother of the chick which is hen!
Though she made a few mistakes, I noticed her improvement. Before this, she can't even spell even a word. Pity her. Her teacher always scolded her and put nasty remarks on her book like 'never learn???' and 'don't study???'. I am not bluffing when I put many question marks there. The teacher really treated her like a 15 years old student whereas she is just 6 years old.
I hope, she will keep improving herself so that I could transfer her back to KG2. Insyaallah...
