Free Australian Dictation Sample.Pdf

LESSON Page Copybook

INTRODUCTION 4 1 Little Tommy Tadpole by C J Dennis 15 One 2 Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree by M Sinclair 16 One 3 Bound for Botany Bay 17 One 4 The Wonderland of Nature by Nuri Mass 18 One 5 Australian Legendary Tales by K Langloh-Parker 19 One 6 Click go the Shears 20 One 7 Spotty the Bower Bird by E S Sorenson 21 One 8 Farmer Shultz’s Ducks by Colin Thiele 22 One 9 Tiger in the Bush by Nan Chauncy 23 Two 10 A Book for Kids by C J Dennis 24 Two 11 Our Sunburnt Country by A Baillie 25 Two 12 James Ruse by Watkin Tench 26 Two 13 Six Little New Zealanders by Esther Glen 28 Two 14 A Bush Calendar by Amy Mack 29 Two 15 The Silver Brumby by E Mitchell 30 Two 16 King’s Narrative of the Burke and Wills Exploring Expedition 31 Two 17 The Wonderland of Nature by Nuri Mass 32 Two 18 Crowns of Fire 33 Two 19 Advance Australia Fair by Peter Dodds McCormick 34 Three 20 The Singing Wire by Eve Pownall 35 Three 21 Following the Equator by Mark Twain 36 Three 22 A Letter from Strzelecki 37 Three 23 Shearing at Castlereagh by Banjo Patterson. 38 Three

24 Naturecraft in Australia by Thistle Harris 40 Three 25 Valley of Heavenly Gold by Eve Sutton 41 Three 26 A Mothers Offering to her Children by Charlotte Barton 42 Three 27 Flynn of the Inland by Ion Idriess 44 Three 28 Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner 45 Three 29 Captain Cook’s Journal During the First Voyage 45 Three 30 & 31 Bligh’s Narrative of the Mutiny on Board H.M. Ship Bounty Part One and Two 47 Three

32 Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times by A Pakeha Maori 49 Three Appendix I Spelling Rules 50 Appendix II – Grammar and Literary Terms check List 52 Appendix III – Charlotte Mason Grammar Lessons 56 Appendix IV – Text types 60 Appendix V—Punctuation usage 62 Appendix VI—Lesson Planner and Word Study Chart 65 References 66

INTRODUCTION

Downunder Passages is a complementary resource to the Downunder Copy Work series. The goal of this book is to teach you how to apply the useful method of dictation based on the teachings of Ruth Beechick and Charlotte Mason. It also gives suggestions to help you extend this resource to cover other areas of language arts study. The dictation lessons are all based on the quotes used in the Downunder Copy Work series.

Excerpts from whole or ‘living’ books, dating from 1769-2007, have been used. They include: classic fiction, poetry, songs, biographies, studies of nature and explorers’ journals. Passages have been carefully selected from a broad range of good Australian and New Zealand literature. These extracts introduce your student ‘mind to mind’ with the author. They are educational, encouraging, uplifting and will bring delight to you and your students.

We hope that, in using this material, you will be introduced to some wonderful books and writings of which you were previously unaware. At times the extracts have stopped in places that will leave your student ‘hungry for more’. If they want to read the whole book, encourage them. Most of these books you should be able to find second hand or in a library. Some are out of print, but with a little hunting you can find them. We did!

Many of the included works highlight what was happening in the era in which they were written. For this reason, some of the literature may well be ‘politically incorrect’ by today’s standards, but at the time of writing it was not. Please use anything that is ‘politically incorrect’ as an opportunity to teach your student about the culture of the times.

Well-chosen passages expose children to good literature and a variety of writing styles that help them recognise and use well-structured sentences, good grammar and correct punctuation.

The dictation method that Charlotte Mason suggests is not what most of us would remember from school. A great emphasis is placed on preparing the dictation passage before they are required to write it. This can be done using copy work, word study and careful examination of the piece to be written (more on this later). The goal is to get it right the first time.

Charlotte Mason and Ruth Beechick suggest starting dictation during the primary education years. To include children younger than this just use the passages for copy work, and the Springboards for Further Study section. Most of the ideas can be modified to suit multiple ages without too much trouble. The ideas and checklists are based on primary age skills and competencies.

There are 32 dictation lessons. The passages can be quite lengthy, so individualise the dictation for each student depending on their abilities. At first, just one line may be enough. You can work on the same dictation lesson over several days. As they improve you can increase the amount of dictation required in one sitting. Start simply, giving all the help needed to get the extract correct and gradually give less prompts.

Presentation of the work is important. Instruct the student on using a margin, indentation of paragraphs and a title for the work. Encourage the student to use self editing skills and proofread their work. If they see something wrong allow them to correct it (using an eraser or liquid paper) prior to handing it over for marking. Storage of the dictation can be in a notebook, folder or book. A well presented work will make them proud of their achievements.

Mark their dictation on the spot whenever possible, getting them to erase the mistake and write the correction over it. This is a very important phase for imprinting the correct image in your student’s mind. Resist the temptation to scribble in the corrections. We want the students to be proud of their work. I use three indicators for marking: presentation, spelling and accuracy. I take a half point off for each mistake and give an overall mark.

SPELLING AND WORD STUDY

Knowing how to spell is essential in getting a dictation passage correct and dictation is a useful aid for teaching correct spelling.

When you and your students are preparing a dictation passage, have the student look for words that they may find difficult and have them do a word study. This can involve: carefully copying out the word; visualizing the word in their mind with their eyes closed; practice writing the words (make sure they are practising the correct spelling).

After the word or words have been identified, allow time for the student to learn the spelling. When the student feels confident that they can spell the word correctly, begin the dictation. Look at your student’s dictation and see where the errors are. From this you can make individualised spelling lists. You may also wish to introduce some spelling rules to help them with the word (see Appendix I).

Remember to correct misspelt words as soon as possible so that you don’t risk the student memorising the incorrect spelling.

‘The gift of spelling depends upon the power the eye possesses to “take” (in a photographic sense) a detailed picture of a word; and this is a power and habit which must be cultivated in children from the first. When they have read “cat”, they must be encouraged to see the word with their eyes shut, and the same habit will enable them to image “Thermopylae”. This picturing of words upon the retina appears to be to be the only royal road to spelling; an error once made and corrected leads to fearful doubt for the rest of one's life, as to which was the wrong way and which is the right. Most of us are haunted by some doubt as to whether “balance”, for instance, should have one “l” or two; and the doubt is born of a correction. Once the eye sees a misspelt word, that image remains; and if there is also the image of the word rightly spelt, we are perplexed as to which is which. Now we see why there could not be a more ingenious way of making bad spellers than “dictation” as it is commonly taught. Every misspelt word is in image in the child's brain not to be obliterated by the right spelling. It becomes, therefore, the teacher's business to prevent false spelling, and, if an error has been made, to hide it away, as it were, so that the impression may not become fixed.’ Charlotte Mason. Home Education.

7 Downunder Passages by M Morrow © 2016 Page | 7 Lesson Three Who is this song about? Do you know it? Where are they going? What period of Bound for Botany Bay Australian history is this song about? What is the lesson they have for you?

Author Unknown Listen to the rhythm. Can you find the rhyming words?

Farewell to old England forever, Pretend you are an editor and proofread this song for mistakes., or samples of non- Farewell to my old pals as well. standard English.

Farewell to the well-known Old Bailey,

Where I used to cut such a swell.

There’s the captain who is our commander.

There’s the bo’sun and all the ship’s crew,

There’s the first and the second class passengers,

Knows what we poor convicts goes through.

Taint leaving old England we cares about,

‘Taint cos we misspelt what we knows.

But because we all light-fingered gentry

Hops round with a log on our toes.

Now, all my young Dookies and Duchesses,

Take warning from what I’ve to say—

Mind all is your own as you toucheses,

Or you’ll meet us in Botany Bay.

Watkin Tench from A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson ©1793 ‘My land I prepared thus,’ he told Captain Tench. ‘Having burnt the fallen timber off the ground, I dug in the ashes, then hoed it up, never doing more than eight or perhaps nine rods in a day, by which means, it was not like the government farm, just scratched over, but properly done—then I clod moulded it and dug. I then let it lie as long as I could, exposed to air and sun and just before I sowed my seed, turned it up afresh. When I shall have reaped my crop, I purpose to hoe it again, and harrow it fine, and then sow it with turnip-seed, which will mellow and prepare it for next year.’

Can you split the compound sentences into simple sentences?

Tuesday 15th August 1769: The farthest Island to the Southward that Tupia hath been at, or knows anything of, lies but 2 days’ Sail from Ohetiroa, and is called Moutou, but he says that his father once told him that there were Islands to the Southward of it; but we cannot find that he either knows or ever heard of a Continent or large Track of Land. I have no reason to doubt Tupia’s information of these Islands.

Saturday 7th October: Gentle breezes and settled weather. At 2p.m. saw land*. From the Masthead bearing West by North, which we stood directly for, and could but just see it off the deck at sunset.

Monday 9th October: Gentle breezes and clear water. P.M. stood into the Bay and anchored on the North-East side before the entrance of a small river.

Tupia spoke to them in his own language, and it was an agreeable surprise to us to find they perfectly understood him. After some little conversation had passed one of them swam over to us, and after him 20 or 30 more; these last brought their Arms, which the first man did not. We made them every one presents, but this did not satisfy them; they wanted everything we had about us, particularly our Arms, and made several attempts to snatch them out of our hands.

You will need to teach the following vocabulary to your students so that they can understand spelling rules:

 Vowels  Consonants  Suffix  Syllable Basic Spelling Rules.

1. ‘I’ before ‘E’ except after ‘C’.

 Write i before e, except after c or when sounding like ‘a’ as in neighbour or weigh.

Exceptions to the rule have to be learnt: either, neither, caffeine, codeine, coun- terfeit, foreign, forfeit, height, heir, leisure, weird, seize, and seizure, their .

2. ‘s’ or ‘es’

 Add es if a word ends in ch, sh, ss, x or z. march — marches, ash — ashes, bless — blesses, fox — foxes,

 Add es for most words that end in o. tomato — tomatoes, hero — heroes, go — goes, do — does, echo — echoes

3. Change ‘y’ to an ‘i’ before adding an ending

 For words ending in y preceded by a vowel, retain the y when adding ‘s’ or a suffix. monkey — monkeys, donkey — donkeys

 For words ending in y, retain the y when adding ‘ing’. try — trying, justify — justifying, certify — certifying, mystify — mystifying

 For words ending in y, preceded by a consonant, change the y to i before any other suffix cry — cried, multiply — multiplies, fly — flies. EXCEPTIONS: Words such as dryness and slyness,

The Parts of Speech

Nouns What is a noun?

Define the different types of nouns Common

Proper

Collective

Abstract

What is a plural or singular noun?

What do we mean by ‘gender of nouns’?

Pronouns What is a pronoun?

What is a personal pronoun?

What is a relative pronoun?

What is an interrogative pronoun?

What is a demonstrative pronoun?

Verbs What is a verb?

What must every sentence have? What is a finite verb?

Verbs and their subjects.

Verbs and their objects. What are direct/indirect objects?

Can you change the tense of a piece Tense and verbs. of writing?

Name some regular verbs? Are there What are regular verbs? any in your copywork piece?

Name some irregular verbs? Are What are irregular verbs? there any in your copywork piece?

Underline all the verbs including the Auxiliary verbs (helping verbs). helping verbs like 'was' and 'had'.

EXPOSITION or PERSUASION: Purpose: To put forward an argument or particular point of view. Structure: Point of view is stated, justifications of arguments in a logical order, summing up of argument. Example: Lesson 30.

DISCUSSION Purpose: To present the information and opinions about more than one side of an issue. Structure: Opening statement presenting the information. Arguments or evidence for the different points of view. Concluding recommendations. Example: Lesson 31

REPORT

Purpose: To present factual information about a class of things, usually by classifying them and then describing their characteristics.

Structure: Opening definition or classification. Sequence of related statements about topics. Concluding statement.

PROCEDURE

Purpose: To show how something is accomplished through a series of steps.

Structure: Opening statement of goal or aim. Materials required listed in order of use.

Series of steps listed in chronological order.

EXPLANATION Purpose: To explain how or why things are as they are, or how things work. Structure: A general statement; a series of events in chronological order; concluding statement. Examples: Lesson 4 and 12

60 Downunder Passages by M Morrow © 2016 Page | 60 APPENDIX V COMMON PUNCTATION RULES The following list gives some general usage using the open style of punctuation. For a more comprehensive list consult an Australian style manual or punctuation resource. CAPITAL LETTERS  Capital letters must be used at the beginning of proper nouns.  Start a sentence with a capital.  ‘I’ is always capitalised.  Start direct speech with a capital.  Capitalise the first letter in the main words in a book title, film, play etc.  Capitalise days of the weeks, months or holidays. FULL STOPS  Every sentence must end with either a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.  Most abbreviations are followed by a full stop, except when the last letter of the word is at the end of the abbreviation. QUESTION MARK  Use a question mark at the end of a question. EXCLAMATION MARK  This is used at the end of a sentence or exclamation when you want to convey strong emo- tion.  This punctuation mark should not be used too often and only use one exclamation mark at a time. COMMA  Commas are separation marks and they are used to indicate a short break in a sentence. The current accepted style is to use them as little as possible and only when they are needed to help the reader understand the meaning more clearly.  Sometimes the use of the comma is optional; you can decide whether or not it is needed.  A comma should be placed in a sentence when a slight pause is indicated.  Use a comma before direct speech.  Use a comma to separate items in a list or series of names. A comma is usually omitted before ‘and’.