15 January 2009

D.O.L. and D.O.M.

When I was in elementary school, my teachers had us start the day by doing D.O.L.s and D.O.Ms. These little lessons stood for Daily Oral Language and Daily Oral Math and would be written on the board when we came in the classroom in the morning. As students, we were expected to write down our answers in or D.O.L. and D.O.M. notebooks as we came into class and listened to the morning announcements. Then, the teacher would stand in front of the board and go over the answers.

I don't remember anything about the D.O.M.s, but I have distinct recollections of the D.O.Ls.

Usually, they were sentences like this:

do you want two come too the store with me to by some plane flower jeremy asked johnny

The students would, of course, write the sentence correctly. Then, when we went over the sentence the students could correct their mistakes. If I remember correctly, my teachers would even have us raise our hands to identify corrections that needed to be made, and then we could go up and make those corrections on the board. So, by the end of the exercise, the sentence would look like this:

"Do you want to go to the store with me to buy some plain flour?" Jeremy asked Johnny.

D.O.L.s were one of the best things about my elementary education. They are the reason I am so critical of written language and why I often think, "Oh come on! Didn't you learn anything in elementary school?" when I see things like "alot" and "could of gone." Those sorts of things make me want to stand at the chalkboard and smugly make the corrections. Unfortunately, I don't often see those on a chalkboard or a piece of paper; I see them on computer screens where I cannot fix them.

8 comments:

Janssen said...

What is "plain four?"

Bwhahahahahahaha.

Sherry said...

Yes, well, fortunately, we would go over those problems aloud so I would have a second chance to correct anything I may have missed. On the rare occasion I missed something.

Jon said...

You are so inviting a host of snarky misspelled sentences on this hear comment poster bored.j

Unknown said...

Are you the Sherry whose comment about curtains when referring to dress-wear made me break out in hives? [~shudder~] I never had to DOL on the chalkboard, but grammar/syntax errors do irritate me so. (love the header on your blog!)

Christy said...

You could have a hay day or a hey day on my blog! I didn't learn anything in elementary school.

Megan said...

Agreed. Grammar is important, signifying a well-educated, intelligent mind. It bothers me that people don't care about their language or education, or just let it all fly out the window while on the computer. I especially dislike sentences that contain NO capital letters, such as: i had a fun day today because i went to central park. Grrr!

Ana said...

My father uses "seen" like it is just your regular past tense. He may as well use a cheese grater on my face. arrrggghhhhh.

Jenn said...

I am constantly impressed with your detailed memory of things that happened in school. Seriously, how do you remember what period I had certain classes when I can't remember I even took that class?!