What is the difference between dictation and copywork?

Copywork and dictation are both writing exercises that start from a finished passage, which is why people mix them up. The difference is what the child does with the passage. In copywork the child looks at the words and copies them by hand. In dictation the child studies the passage first, then writes it from a voice reading it aloud. One trains the hand and the other trains the ear and the spelling. The what is dictation guide explains the wider meaning of the word, which is speaking words for someone to write down.

Copywork trains the hand, and dictation trains the spelling

In copywork the model stays in front of the writer. Simply Charlotte Mason, a homeschool publisher that teaches the method, describes copywork as giving the student a model to copy, with the focus on handwriting for grades 1 and 2 ¹. The child copies one letter, then a word, then a line, then a sentence, slowly and with care for the shape of each letter.

In dictation the model is gone when the writing starts. The student prepares the whole passage, then writes it as the teacher reads it. The same publisher describes this as the step after the student can write words from memory, when the whole passage is prepared and written at once as the teacher dictates it ². The student must know how to spell every word before the reading begins.

Charlotte Mason puts transcription before dictation

Charlotte Mason's own name for the early exercise is transcription. In her Home Education she wrote that the earliest writing practice for children of seven or eight should be transcription, not letter-writing or dictation ³. She also said that transcription should be an introduction to spelling ⁴.

The modern terms do not line up exactly. Many homeschool sources use copywork for the handwriting stage and transcription for the next stage. The same publisher describes that stage as the time when the student concentrates on spelling the passage being copied, once the mechanics of handwriting are mastered ⁵. So a child who copies by hand may be doing copywork, transcription or both, depending on the family's labels.

Where the two exercises overlap

Both use a finished passage from a good book, a poem or a scripture, so the same text can serve either exercise. Both expose the child to how a sentence is built, and both can be done in short sessions. A child who is still forming letters is not ready for dictation, because the writing itself takes all of their attention. A child who writes neatly but misspells words often gains more from dictation.

It depends on the child's stage

• If the child is still learning letter shapes, start with copywork. The model in front of them keeps the attention on the hand.
• If the child forms letters well but misspells, move to dictation, where the spelling is the goal.
• If the child has a learning difficulty with writing or spelling, the question is not one a web page can answer. Ask a teacher or specialist which exercise fits, and do not treat a general method as a diagnosis.
• If you mean transcription in the modern sense, turning a recording into text, that is a different job. See dictation vs transcription.

What to do with both exercises

1. Choose a passage of a few sentences from a book the child can read.
2. For copywork, have the child copy it by hand from the page, one short line at a time.
3. Once the handwriting is steady, have the child study the hard words first and then write them from memory.
4. For dictation, read the passage aloud a clause at a time, each clause once, and let the child write it.
5. Compare the written version with the passage together, and correct the errors without copying the wrong spelling over.

For more on the wider method, see the dictation overview and the question on what dictation in school looks like. For the Charlotte Mason version in detail, read what dictation means in the Charlotte Mason method. The word dictation is also defined in the glossary.