Narration beyond WWE--how do you do it?

[melissel]

I just started asking my DD8 to narrate our SOTW chapters again after stopping for awhile because it was making her hate history reading. Now that it comes a bit easier to her, I'm thinking I may start making it a regular thing again. I know others have their DC narrate their history and science readings, and maybe other things too. Can you tell me how you implement this? Do you just have them give you an oral narration for the "extra" things, or do you have them write down ALL narrations? What do you do if your kid starts dreading it, or dreading doing the subject itself (which is what happened with history--it was her favorite subject, then she hated it, and now she loves it again, but I'm afraid she'll begin to dread it again)?

 

TIA!

[mom2boys030507]

I have my children narrate once a day. What they narrate changes daily? Some days, it is history, the next science, the following their independant reading. A one to two times per week I write down my youngers narration and then he copies it, my older writes his own, then I correct spelling and punctuation - answering if he asks but mostly he doesn't. I currently do not use WWE so the only narrations we do are in other subjects. My husband will randomly ask on of the boys to narrate on the reading he does at night, mostly to see what they are remembering but it is helpful because then I am not always the one asking.

[TracyP]

I am using WWE w/o the workbook but I don't really know how it is going yet so I am :bigear:. I just wanted to say I love your siggy. I am feeling Toad's pain about right now.

[Spock]

I just started asking my DD8 to narrate our SOTW chapters again after stopping for awhile because it was making her hate history reading. Now that it comes a bit easier to her, I'm thinking I may start making it a regular thing again. I know others have their DC narrate their history and science readings, and maybe other things too. Can you tell me how you implement this? Do you just have them give you an oral narration for the "extra" things, or do you have them write down ALL narrations? What do you do if your kid starts dreading it, or dreading doing the subject itself (which is what happened with history--it was her favorite subject, then she hated it, and now she loves it again, but I'm afraid she'll begin to dread it again)?

 

TIA!

 

We do oral narrations for everything we read/read aloud for school, every day. We do 2-3 written narrations per week in the elementary years (2nd-6th grade), moving into one written narration/essay per day starting in 7th grade. (We build from simple summaries into short essays, and then to longer essays and research papers.)

 

I have occasionally tried having my children write a 1-3 sentence summary of everything they read, but always drop it quickly. It turns into a chore/busy work very quickly. It would be especially painful for my current two non-high school students, one with mild dyslexia and one with ADHD.

[melissel]

We do oral narrations for everything we read/read aloud for school, every day. We do 2-3 written narrations per week in the elementary years (2nd-6th grade), moving into one written narration/essay per day starting in 7th grade.

 

:svengo: And they do this for you? Without complaint? You would think I'm at my DD8 with hot pokers when I ask her to narrate anything besides WWE for me, even though she can produce a fairly good narration, fairly quickly.

[mommyto4]

My boys love history, but do not like writing narrations what they have heard. At the beginning of the year, we did some narrations but it resulted in screaming, pencils being thrown...

Just recently, I have started putting written narration back into our history lessons. I usually have them do three to four sentences on one section from the chapter. For my ds6, he writes one and write the rest. My 8 year old does it on his own.

They use WWE and also do some narrations in science. I think it is plenty:)

[robsiew]

We do WWE. On top of that my two older kids narrate history once a week. They do narrations in science 2 days a week. I don't have them narrate their lit. books at all, they just read those and enjoy them. I will start my younger guys narrating in history and science next year. They will start with only one sentence each though and build from there.

[Zoo Keeper]

We narrate/write across our subjects as well. Monday is science; Tuesday and Thursday are history, Wednesday is classical studies. Once in while I might have them write a narration from their free reading, but very, very infrequently. I want to keep up that love of reading.

 

We have been doing narrations in all our subjects from the beginning (K). At first, we talk it over, I take their two word answers, turn it into sentence, and make them say it back to me. Then I write it down, and they trace or copy it, depending on age/ability. These beginning narrations (K,1st) are two short sentences at the most. We do this on blank top paper, and after writing, they get to draw about what we wrote. This drawing is the carrot that gets my stubborn donkeys to write. We have even done stickers, glitter glue, paper cutouts, whatever gets them excited about that page.

 

The same process is repeated for first/second/third grade, only with a little more discussion before writing ("who did we read about?", "what did they do?","tell me two things you remember about this person/place" etc.) and hopefully a few more complete sentences on their part. I write down the sentences we come up with :), and then they copy out on the blank top paper and illustrate. Sometimes I might dictate one of two of the sentences to them.

 

Last year I felt like narrations were pulling teeth. For all of us. Even though we did it almost every day, they still moaned about it. But something happened about 1/3 into this school year--they stopped complaining, and to my amazement, actually started writing their narrations completely on their own (I'm talking about the 9 and 7 year old, not the 5 year old). I rarely have to prompt and dig and drag the sentences out of them. The lightbulb has gone on!:001_smile: They are still doing about 2 to 4 sentences, but the sentences have gotten a little bit longer (the line widths on the blank top paper got smaller, and now have more lines...). They still enjoy illustrating their narrations, and all this paper trail gets put into the history/science/English notebooks.

 

In retrospect, I guess what has helped the older two get over the narration "hump" is doing it (almost) daily, doing it for more than one subject (so that one subject does not become the untouchable), and keeping it short. Now that this school year is drawing to a close, my oldest will easily do a longer narration without batting an eyelash. Night and day difference from this time last year. KEEP AT IT! It will pay off sometime.:)

[Critterfixer]

We narrate/write across our subjects as well. Monday is science; Tuesday and Thursday are history, Wednesday is classical studies. Once in while I might have them write a narration from their free reading, but very, very infrequently. I want to keep up that love of reading.

 

 

As do we. I might add that I will sometimes have copywork for things that make a dull narration in history or science. Some things you just can't get all excited about. I actually have my ds7s do a majority of their narrations from story books right now, because they came to hate narration so much. Two weeks and now they run in begging to narrate something that happened to them while they were out playing. Narration is telling the story back--so it had better be interesting enough to tell about.

 

In retrospect, I guess what has helped the older two get over the narration "hump" is doing it (almost) daily, doing it for more than one subject (so that one subject does not become the untouchable), and keeping it short.

:iagree:Short is probably key, especially if the material isn't that easy to recall. I also found that for both of my guys it really helped when I showed them how to construct a narration for the material. For history we are interested in names, places and events primarily. For science we are interested in name, function (habitat or classification) and something of interest about whatever we are working on. For classic literature we want names, plot events and conclusion. We also do a lot of drawing right now to illustrate the narration, although I don't do glitter.:001_smile: I have not made them copy their narrations because they do a lot of copywork and I want to keep narrations coming at this point!

[Halcyon]

We narrate daily. We do WWE 3 four days a week, and the fifth day is History or Science. Usually History...The younger does dictation or copywork 3 days a week or maybe four if I'm lucky. It's gotten much easier over time. Slow and steady is our motto here.

[iona]

:bigear:

[Critterfixer]

Sometimes it might help to vary the style of the narrations somewhat. For history you might ask for a focus to be on a person-almost an interview. You might have the narration read more like a news-flash. Or you might have a good artist do a graphic novel-like narration. Or have the kids act out the story like a charade. Anything to break up the monotony. Not all narrations have to be dry sentences on paper, although creative narrations must not be the only type of narration done.

[FO4UR]

I start small and let it grow as naturally as possible. I get most of my narrations without the kids knowing it's for school.:D

 

I count play-acting scenes from history/literature with playmobil as a narration. My kids marked themselves up as animals this afternoon (um...too much time on the internet for me:lol:) and engaged in pretend play that was a direct result of our reading last and this week = narration.

 

We read the chapter in Anne of Green Gables where Anne is accused of losing Marilla's brooch. dd6 brought in a pretty rock from outside and declared that her brooch.:lol: Her descriptions of her rock obviously came straight from the book...I count those kinds of things. She "lived" that story in play.

 

I have them tell daddy their favorite story read today...better yet, Daddy asks.

 

I ask them to remind me what happened last before I read the next chapter. (playing dumb:001_huh::tongue_smilie:)

 

In a heavier book, ds8 will ask me what something means. I ask him what he thinks it means (sometimes asking him to hear the rest of the paragraph first), and we pull out the meaning together. I give him an example of how I narrate in this process.

 

I ask at times other than right after reading the chapter...as if talking about books we read is a normal part of life.

 

When I sense that they sense that they are being quizzed, I change my approach. If I look at narrations as a box to check, it becomes clear that it isn't about them anymore. For daily narrations, for most every thing we read, narrations are simply part of sharing a book together. (very CM)

 

When I write down narrations, I approach it more like SWB. I ask him more guided questions and make verbal notes about putting a comma here, capitalizing a proper noun, editing out extraneous utterances, making a complete sentence, etc... For these, he has a much better attitude if I let him choose the topic. (Do you want to tell me about Robin Hood, Alexander the Great, or the digestive system?) I tell him those narrations are for his portfolio, and he takes pride in keeping a record of things he knows. (I also don't do this everyday or he would revolt!)

 

I haven't even begun to have him write his own narrations. That is foreign territory! He does keep a journal for drawing/writing as he pleases, and his drawings are often along the lines of a narration (ala CM). When we read Treasure Island, he kept a cast of characters in his journal along with multiple drawings of pirate ships. We planted some flower seeds last week, and he is keeping a daily log complete with drawings and a sentence now and then. All his idea (and uncorrected by me). All counted as narration.

 

My ways are yet to be time tested...results are TBA. I worry about every other month that I'm "not doing enough" and consult WWE textbook now and then to compare where we are to where we are going. ymmv:001_smile:

[Spock]

:svengo: And they do this for you? Without complaint? You would think I'm at my DD8 with hot pokers when I ask her to narrate anything besides WWE for me, even though she can produce a fairly good narration, fairly quickly.

 

They used to complain at first. We have done this for all readings since kindergarten, and they heard me requiring it from their big brothers before that, so they don't complain any more. (I most often use CM style narrations--they tell everything they remember.)

 

My daughter has actually never complained about oral narrations. She will tell more than anyone ever wanted to know about everything. She even does this for books she reads on her own. Her brothers always liked/like to give a short narration of only the important bits, and needed to be drawn out to give other details. For her, I sometimes have to require the WTM "just the main ideas" kind of narration.

[gracefulhome]

I start small and let it grow as naturally as possible. I get most of my narrations without the kids knowing it's for school.:D

 

 

My ways are yet to be time tested...results are TBA. I worry about every other month that I'm "not doing enough" and consult WWE textbook now and then to compare where we are to where we are going. ymmv:001_smile:

 

My kids- ages 7,9,11 and 13 - orally narrate spontaneously about almost everything they read. It is just a natural thing in our house to tell each other about what we are reading.

 

I have read aloud to my children almost every single night since my oldest was a newborn. When we started to read chapter books, I would play dumb and ask them to remind me what happened in the previous chapter. (Ok, when I had really little ones, I was often sleep deprived and wasn't actually "playing" dumb.)

 

I also model narration by narrating to them about books I am reading.

 

Now written narration has been a weakness here, so I don't have any advice in that area. We'll be working on that this next year with concerted effort. But we have had great success with oral narration.