Why Summaries?

[Mrs. H]

I don't post here too often (I lurk a lot, thought), but I have been trying to figure out whether to pursue narration ala WTM or CM with my younger children. I understand that SWB teaches narrations that might more accurately be called summaries, and am wondering why one might want to focus on summaries instead of the more traditional CM narrations, where a child tries to tell back a passage in detail. With my eldest (11), I taught regular narrations, which he did really well with, and it seems that it will not be too difficult to teach him to summarize passages, or to otherwise organize his writing. Why would one want to spend all of the elementary years learning to summarize, which is a skill that may be easily learned more quickly by an older child? Would it not be better to use traditional narration to help a child learn to tell a story and immitate quality writing?

 

I've read WWE, but feel like I'm missing the point of these exercises.

 

TIA,

Sarah

[Colleen in NS]

I don't post here too often (I lurk a lot, thought), but I have been trying to figure out whether to pursue narration ala WTM or CM with my younger children. I understand that SWB teaches narrations that might more accurately be called summaries, and am wondering why one might want to focus on summaries instead of the more traditional CM narrations, where a child tries to tell back a passage in detail. With my eldest (11), I taught regular narrations, which he did really well with, and it seems that it will not be too difficult to teach him to summarize passages, or to otherwise organize his writing. Why would one want to spend all of the elementary years learning to summarize, which is a skill that may be easily learned more quickly by an older child? Would it not be better to use traditional narration to help a child learn to tell a story and immitate quality writing?

 

I've read WWE, but feel like I'm missing the point of these exercises.

 

TIA,

Sarah

 

Here's my understanding. I think of these shorter WWE-style summaries as twice a week exercise in extracting the main ideas or the main storyline in a passage/chapter/book. If you can do this, then you can later write outlines (extracting main ideas and supporting details in history or science passages, putting them into order, which helps you see how the writer ordered his writing). Then you can rewrite from those outlines and practice imitating another writer before you have to come up with your own outlines/writing for your own ideas. And being able to extract a main storyline from a lit. book will help you to get the "bones" of a story without being sidelined by all the details. I think it helps you to see the big picture of what the author wrote. So, if you do this two or three times a week for a few years, the child gets the practice, and the rest of the time the child can follow you around and tell you ALL the details of the latest book he has read, which is what happens here at my house, :D, fulfilling that urge to tell you everything.

[Mrs. H]

Thank you- I'm wondering though, do you really think it requires several years of practice to learn the skill of summarizing? It seems to me that a 9 or 10yo could be taught to do this over a month or two quite successfully. I only have experience with one child so far, however, and he seems to be naturally inclined in this area, so perhaps I will find that it does take longer with my other two.

[In the Rain]

:lurk5:

[Whereneverever]

:lurk5:

[siloam]

Thank you- I'm wondering though, do you really think it requires several years of practice to learn the skill of summarizing? It seems to me that a 9 or 10yo could be taught to do this over a month or two quite successfully. I only have experience with one child so far, however, and he seems to be naturally inclined in this area, so perhaps I will find that it does take longer with my other two.

 

I really don't think it matters. I mean you do want them to be able to summarize, but if they can then I think you can do either. For me with 3 kids doing narration it just keeps me sane to do summaries.

 

Heather

 

[Mrs. H]

I definately here you on that! WWE (esp using the workbook) seems so neat, tidy, and simple, and my children really loved doing the lessons in the book- where they will often balk at regular narrations.

[ELaurie]

filled with beautiful prose, and charming details. I love hearing them, even if it does give me writer's cramp to write them out. (He can talk faster than he can write, and being a reluctant writer, there's no way he could write the number of paragraphs he can churn out orally).

 

However, identifying the most important points is a different skill, the way I understand it. It has been more difficult for him to master this year them I would have anticipated, given how easily he can do CM style narrations. I have been doing WWE level 2/3 activities with him, and condensing some of the longer passages into three short sentences, in order to provide a concise summary which includes a problem faced, a solution implemented, and the results has been challenging for him.

 

However, having heard SWB outline her approach to teaching writing in Cinncy, I now have a better understanding of why this skill is so important. I think it will train his mind in ways that will prepare him to read, organize information, and write coherently in Jr. High, HS, and beyond.

 

I've been reflecting that learning this skill is one aspect of what it means to have a well trained mind. . .

[Colleen in NS]

Thank you- I'm wondering though, do you really think it requires several years of practice to learn the skill of summarizing? It seems to me that a 9 or 10yo could be taught to do this over a month or two quite successfully. I only have experience with one child so far, however, and he seems to be naturally inclined in this area, so perhaps I will find that it does take longer with my other two.

 

I'm not sure. Probably it has to do with me not knowing quite what I was doing, but it took me a few years to teach my oldest child to narrate summaries. Now that I have WWE, I can see the thread running through it with teaching summaries, so it's easier to teach my next child. But it starts off gently with narrating from a paragraph or two, and making a one sentence summary. It is gradually practiced, on longer passages, and writing more than one sentence. But also it teaches how to summarize non-fiction vs. fiction (important details vs. a storyline), and I did not know how to do this before. So, I'm glad to help my next child do this gradually, instead of trying to teach it all to her in a month or two. But I'm more of the mind that it's better to learn these things gradually over time, rather than trying to teach it all in a shorter time. I'd rather my kids have several years to get really comfortable with something so that it's second nature, rather than being like me who has to learn something quickly in order to teach it to them, but never really feeling like something is second nature to me. I want them to have a better foundation than I did.

[Mrs. H]

Thank you ELaurie and Colleen, these replies were very helpful. I think that I will do WWE my boys, but will continue with cm style narrations on the side.

 

Sarah

[Narrow Gate Academy]

I don't post here too often (I lurk a lot, thought), but I have been trying to figure out whether to pursue narration ala WTM or CM with my younger children. I understand that SWB teaches narrations that might more accurately be called summaries, and am wondering why one might want to focus on summaries instead of the more traditional CM narrations, where a child tries to tell back a passage in detail. With my eldest (11), I taught regular narrations, which he did really well with, and it seems that it will not be too difficult to teach him to summarize passages, or to otherwise organize his writing. Why would one want to spend all of the elementary years learning to summarize, which is a skill that may be easily learned more quickly by an older child? Would it not be better to use traditional narration to help a child learn to tell a story and immitate quality writing?

 

I wrote a blog article earlier this week explaining how I tend to differ in some ways from the framework in TWTM in regards to language arts. Having tried both, I actually prefer CM style narrations to summaries a la TWTM at the grammar level. Below is an excerpt where I describe our experience with narrations with my oldest DD.

 

"When Jessie first started narrating, she would give me these lengthy, detailed, descriptive style narrations. Because I was following TWTM recommendations, I spent most of first grade trying to get her to shorten her narrations into more of a summary. The end result was that she stopped paying attention as closely as she had at first because she knew she only needed to remember the main points. The details and descriptions vanished, and she hated both narrating and history. I've spent the last two years trying to reverse this. We've switched to what would more of a Charlotte Mason style with our reading."

 

While I believe summarizing is a useful skill, I don't focus on it during the grammar stage any longer. I let my kids focus on and tell me what interested them in the book. It's very rare that they skip over key information that I consider important. To me summary is basically an outline with complete sentences in paragraph form, so my plan is to focus more outlining skills next year in 5th, and every so often have her right a summary based on her outline. HTH

[MamaBlessedThrice]

WOW. I'm really reeling at reading about Narrow Gate's experience with her daughter. We were all set to do Writing with Ease this next year for first grade, but I certainly don't want to risk stifling my daughter's attention to detail, which is what I'm trying to develop in the first place. (Right now she "tells back" two or three pages after reading aloud. It's kind of painful, because she doesn't of course like the hard work of recalling details in the correct sequence. I haven't known how to "do" narrations other than just simply telling her to "tell back what you remember" and prompting her with a general question when she comes to a complete standstill. As it is, she often leaves out details, so I don't want to compound this by going to summaries too quickly.

 

Anyone else have any thoughts/experiences with this?

[Colleen in NS]

WOW. I'm really reeling at reading about Narrow Gate's experience with her daughter. We were all set to do Writing with Ease this next year for first grade, but I certainly don't want to risk stifling my daughter's attention to detail, which is what I'm trying to develop in the first place. (Right now she "tells back" two or three pages after reading aloud. It's kind of painful, because she doesn't of course like the hard work of recalling details in the correct sequence. I haven't known how to "do" narrations other than just simply telling her to "tell back what you remember" and prompting her with a general question when she comes to a complete standstill. As it is, she often leaves out details, so I don't want to compound this by going to summaries too quickly.

 

Anyone else have any thoughts/experiences with this?

 

WWE contains comprehension questions that you ask your child, to see what he/she remembers and to let him/her say the details that may be bursting to come forth. After that is when you help the child to narrow down to the main points.

 

I wish I'd thought to use comprehension questions for my ds when he was in first and second grade, because he did tell all the details, and I had a hard time helping him narrow down. I see now in WWE how these two things can work together, one for saying details, the other for narrowing to main points when the details have been said.

[Staci in MO]

So, if you do this two or three times a week for a few years, the child gets the practice, and the rest of the time the child can follow you around and tell you ALL the details of the latest book he has read, which is what happens here at my house, :D, fulfilling that urge to tell you everything.

:lol: That's how it works here, too.

 

Attention to detail is great, but the ability to read something, determine the main idea, the points that support the main idea, and how they are best arranged is essential for the logic and rhetoric stage. The shorter narrations help train for that skill.

[Colleen in NS]

As it is, she often leaves out details, so I don't want to compound this by going to summaries too quickly.

 

One more thought. WWE starts off with passages that are just a couple of paragraphs long. Then the comprehension questions cover pretty much everything in the passage. Then you ask her to tell the ONE thing she remembers. But before this, she will have told you a bunch of details, in answer to the questions. I think this does develop the ability to pay attention to details. And then later on, she'll be paying attention to details, in order to figure out which are the *most important* details to write in a summary.

[Jami]

Thank you ELaurie and Colleen, these replies were very helpful. I think that I will do WWE my boys, but will continue with cm style narrations on the side.

 

Sarah

 

I'm thinking of using WWE with our history readings next year and continuing more CM-style narrations with the literature they read. Something like that.

[MamaBlessedThrice]

Thanks, Colleen and Staci, for the explanation. Sounds like there is an opportunity to continue to focus on attention to detail, which is what I wanted. (Good. I'll guess I'll have to go on to another recent curriculum choice to second-guess. :D)