# 96 Running Dictation
This activity can be used with any level – just use an appropriate text. It is great for introducing a text that you will study in depth through intensive reading. Or it can also be used to finish off a lesson/unit and review the text again…
Basically, you have to do 4 things.
1. Divide the class into groups of 3-5. One person is a scribe or writer. Give them the handout with only the first part of the article or topic sentence of paragraphs appearing.
2) Discuss the topic sentences, headline/title. Predict. What will the article be about? What words will you encounter? What questions do you have ? A kind of K_W_L (what I know / what I want to know / what I found out).
3. Put up the full text around the classroom, number them for each group. On GO!, the students in turns run to the article/text and read it. They then run back and tell the writer who records it. The next “runner” goes and so on…set a time limit or go until someone has finished the article.
4. Review and check against the real/full article/text. The winner is the group who best recorded the text and NOT the one who wrote the most!
Here’s a full explanation and also a ready to go Running Dictation exercise. It is about the reunification of separated families from the Korean war and is from Andrew Finch’s Activities to help teach the H.S. textbook – get it in our Korea area in the Resources Share.
Enjoy and get fit using Running Dictations!
Running Dictation,
