Need suggestions on narration

[golfcartmama]

My ds is finishing WWE1 next week. We also incorporate Write Source some, although not a daily as I'd like. Anyway, he can narrate WWE with no issues and I am still writing the narrations and he recopies. We do dictation in spelling (AAS sentences) daily and copywork from poetry, FLL 2 and WWE depending on the day. For history, we use SOTW and I ask him th review questions, which he typically get right and answers with prompting in complete sentences, BUT I quit having him narrate b/c it was painful for both of us and made history last ages longer than it should...like 2 hours for 1 part of a chapter. We need to do it. I know we need to do it, but how can I make it easier? Should I just ask for one sentence or a main idea? I need a starting point. Also, I need to be doing this for science as well. We use RSO Life, I guess I can have him narrate the paragraphs before the labs. I'm also not having him do any narration on his independent reading. I'm failing at narration miserably, any jumping off advice appreciated!! :001_smile:

[curlygirlzx2]

Bump :)

[golfcartmama]

:bigear: I really need help with getting started again. I am going to download SWB writing lecture tonight when I'm on my home computer. Any ideas from seasoned hs parents?

[MelissaMom]

:lurk5:

[Critterfixer]

Well, I'm not seasoned, but here's my thoughts on the history narration. I was thinking about what narration is supposed to accomplish. It seems to me that the purpose is to gather information and put it into a cohesive form, with the ultimate goal of retention of the information. Sort of a fusion of WTM and CM.

So, the information gathering is going to be a little different for every subject. Science narrations would focus on answering what and how, and also some details of function or purpose. History narrations would be concerned with who is the history about, when did it happen, and where did it happen. Later, in logic stages you could also focus on the why. I expect one would also focus on the why for science in the logic stage. So I would target my narrations to the most important aspects only, which it sounds like he is getting, if he is answering the questions right. The key is that a history or science narration should not look or read like a narration on an imaginative work of literature. I find the chapters in SOTW to be somewhat lengthy for my ds7 twins to narrate what the chapter was about. They need to narrate on the most important pieces, or the most interesting pieces. I cannot simply ask them to define those things for me. I have to find them and then attract their attention to them.

 

If he is getting worn out with the narrations you might want to hop over to a CM site for some suggestions on varying the narrations. There is a treasure trove of narration help out there. I like charlottemasonhelp.com.

 

I also have decided, at least for now, not to have the boys copy their narrations, only to do copywork. I can assign copywork from every study, and I often do, but I do not ask them to copy even a word of their narrations. I think they had come to dread narration as another thing they had to copy. And as history and science tend to come in the afternoon for us, they were already tired of writing by then. History had become their torture session, mine too. I hope that some of this would be helpful to you. I've been working on this all week, and I've already seen some of the dread leave their eyes when I sit down and we work on a narration together.:001_smile:

[MelissaMom]

Thanks critter, that was helpful....i've bookmarked that link. :001_smile:

[Heidi]

For more difficult readings, I usually have my dd narrate after each paragraph. Maybe you've tried that?

[Joyofsixreboot]

For more difficult readings, I usually have my dd narrate after each paragraph. Maybe you've tried that?

 

:iagree: little bits work best for my kids.