Fact · Dictation
Charlotte Mason wrote that every misspelt word leaves an image in the child's brain that the right spelling does not erase, so the common practice of correcting dictation errors makes bad spellers.
Checked against its source on October 17, 2026
In the source's own words
“Every misspelt word is an image in the child’s brain not to be obliterated by the right spelling.”
Home Education (Home Education Series, Volume 1), Charlotte M. Mason, Project Gutenberg, eBook 71087, 1886, Chapter XII, Spelling and Dictation: A Fertile Cause of Bad Spelling.
Open the original- What it measures
- Mason's explanation of why the usual dictation lesson, in which errors are marked and then copied out, leads to poor spelling. The chapter then sets out the steps of a dictation lesson that she prefers.
- What it does not show
- A theory of memory from Mason's time, offered as an explanation of her observations. It is not a tested finding about how children learn to spell.