Final answer:
Dictation is the process when a teacher writes what a child says, providing a useful tool for language development and assisting children, including those with learning disabilities, in associating spoken words with their written counterparts.
Step-by-step explanation:
​Dictation refers to when the teacher writes exactly what the child says, using prompting questions to expand the child's language.
This method can be particularly useful for children with learning disabilities like dysgraphia, where they struggle to write legibly and this difficulty is inconsistent with their intelligence. Dictation plays a crucial role in language development, helping children associate spoken words with their written form and facilitating their understanding that everything has a name. The process not only assists in building vocabulary but also reinforces the rules and exceptions of language through overgeneralization, as seen in the natural progression of learning to pluralize nouns correctly.
For instance, using finger spelling as a form of dictation, like the one experienced by Helen Keller when she learned the word 'd-o-l-l' from her teacher Miss Sullivan, shows the deep cognitive reinforcement this process can give to children learning new words. In shorthand, dictation takes on a different approach where symbols represent words or syllables, showing the flexibility and range of techniques in dictation.