In the first dictation, they may have to repeat several times until the routine is established. Now, some children will answer with the long e sound. Students are working with listening, segmenting the correct phoneme in the word, and writing its grapheme. They compare theirs to what the teacher has on the board. They should be taken back for more study and review.
Students answer with the sound 'd' and are instructed to write that on their paper.
A mnemonic marking system is used to help children recall the correct choice and any differences between normal pronunciations and correct spellings. Just a bit later, two-syllable words are begun. A Socratic question and answer methodology is used. This process will be slow at first, but becomes quite rapid and automatic as students learn to anticipate the next question. They are, instead, additional and quite commonly-used spelling patterns which use some of the same phonemes previously taught.