Narration question

[Alice]

Background: Ds is 1st grade and this is our first year doing narration. He does well with remembering what happened in the story or passage. I typically try to only do one narration a day, either from WWE or FLL or something from History or Science. Although he's doing well, it's still a new skill and a challenge for him so I think once a day is enough.

 

My question is when you are starting out do you write down exactly what they say or do you help them say it in better sentences. So for example ds will narrate and tell me what the passage said but usually he includes too much and in long sentences with poor grammar (as I would expect since he's only 5). Typically what I do is help him figure out what to leave out to include just the main facts and I will help him rephrase the sentences to be correct. This seemed to make sense to me but then I wondered if I should just write down what he says so it's a better reflection of "his own words".

[2_girls_mommy]

I do help mine. AFter a full year of narration in 1st grade helping her figure out the main points (and not rewriting every detail of the plot!!) my dd7 is pretty good about doing it herself now, with very little help.

[sagira]

Good question. We tried narration for the first time yesterday. I was pondering the same thing as ds is a champion at run-on sentences and "And then" at the beginning of each sentence. If I rephrase, I won't be killing his enthusiasm and creativity, then, or break his line of thought? He takes whatever I rephrase and repeats it. He just turned six last week.

 

This is what he narrated yesterday (SOTW 1 Intro chapter)

 

Lesson: What is History?

 

We can tell our parents and grandfather then we know something and tell people it. That’s what we learned.

Historians learn about the past by reading the writing on the buildings and by reading letters.

[tullyfamily]

I remember SWB recommending helping your student answer in complete sentences and more detail by asking your child questions. (Do you have the student workbook for SOW- it shows some examples of narration.)

 

After asking for more detail, try asking your child a summary in 1-2 sentences. If they can't do it (and they will not be able to in the beginning), demonstrate what to say & have them REPEAT IT BACK TO YOU. I'd only require 1 thing for them to remember at first & when they can get that down, add 2, then 3, etc. Don't stress about what is "important"- the key is for your child to remember something (they will remember it better if they decide what was important!) & articulate it clearly. Do not allow fragments!

 

HTH!

Heather

[Colleen in NS]

Typically what I do is help him figure out what to leave out to include just the main facts and I will help him rephrase the sentences to be correct. This seemed to make sense to me but then I wondered if I should just write down what he says so it's a better reflection of "his own words".

 

I think that since you help him figure out what to leave out, and you model correct grammar using *his* thoughts, he will eventually figure out how to say his own thoughts in a grammatically correct way. Right now you are modeling how to do that. But you *are* using *his* thoughts.

[Alice]

Thanks..that gives me something to work with and ponder. I realized today that I do the narration a little bit differently depending on what it is. So for the literature excerpts from FLL or WWE I just have him tell me one thing he remembers but I don't really worry about whether or not it's the key point. I do usually say it back to him in a proper sentence and then have him repeat it and write it down. If it's science I just ask him to think of 5 facts from the reading and write them down. Just whatever he thought was most interesting, often it's cool trivia instead of the most important thing. But for history I usually help him edit it to the most important or key points. Then we've been using the history notebook with the narrations to review so it works nicely to have the narrations be the highlights from each chapter.

 

I guess it's working so far and the main thing is that he's learning the skill.