What are narrations from your 7/8 yo boy like?

[PeterPan]

I'm trying to get a sense of what typical narrations or just narratives of ANY kind are like from a 7 yo boy.  My ds has a variety of SN, so my sense of what is typical is pretty skewed.  I'd like to make sure that what we are going to work on is realistic for boys in general at this age.   :)

 

So like if your boy is telling you about an event that happened or a movie he went to or a book he read or doing a narration for his history/literature/writing, what will it be like?  

 

-How many sentences?  

-What will be the grammatical complexity and variety of those sentences?  

-Will there be a narrative structure?  (beginning, middle, end, conflict/problem to solve, etc.)

-Will there be mention of other people's feelings or thoughts?

 

At this age, are you still using supports like pictures, keywords, etc. for narrations?

 

Thanks!   :)

Edited May 9, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[SilverMoon]

I'll give it a crack, though I don't know how helpful my boys will be. They are on completely opposite sides of the fence, and our narrations looked more like discussions than a formal "Now narrate what happened" situation.

 

So like if your boy is telling you about an event that happened or a movie he went to or a book he read or doing a narration for his history/literature/writing, what will it be like?  

 

Oldest DS at 7/8 (now a rising senior, severe ADHD, humanities kid)

-How many sentences?  Zillions.

-What will be the grammatical complexity and variety of those sentences?  Yes.

-Will there be a narrative structure?  (beginning, middle, end, conflict/problem to solve, etc.)  Probably, but not necessarily in order. He's a squirrel chaser even in his own narratives.

-Will there be mention of other people's feelings or thoughts? Thoughts, maybe. Feelings, rarely.

At this age, are you still using supports like pictures, keywords, etc. for narrations? Nope. Not needed.

 

My second DS at 7/8 (now rising 8th, very NT, STEM kid through and through)

-How many sentences?  3 if I was lucky. 10 if it's about a topic that really interested him and I coaxed.

-What will be the grammatical complexity and variety of those sentences?  Somewhat. Sorta. Maybe.

-Will there be a narrative structure?  (beginning, middle, end, conflict/problem to solve, etc.)  Yes. Definitely. And it will be in order.

-Will there be mention of other people's feelings or thoughts? Maybe.

At this age, are you still using supports like pictures, keywords, etc. for narrations? This would depend on his interest level in the topic.

 

 

Older DS is never short of words. He could rattle off ginormous lists of facts about Pokemon and all sorts of random trivia about them. Middle DS still never writes a full essay when three sentences will do. He is a master of the concise KISS method.

Edited May 9, 2016 by SilverMoon

[redsquirrel]

In general, narrations are either feast or famine.  A kid either tells you almost nothing, or they recount the whole thing back almost verbatim.  Both are totally normal, and both child needs some guidance.

 

In the SOTW AG she has possible narration replies in the book.  Maybe also in WWE? I remember there are usually several and I could find that my kid's answers usually matched up pretty well to at least one. It was helpful to see that there could be a wide range.

 

I haven't used SOTW AG or WWE in a year...how quickly I forget!

 

I would personally be concerned mostly with a lack of chronology or order in the narration.  Ok, it's one thing if someone starts and then corrects herself, says they need to start over because there was something that happened first. If that person can then continue with the narration in a chronological fashion, then fine. But if the child doesn't realize that things are out of order, that would mean that we needed to work more on narration. Or if things are being told in a way that is all over the place. So, if the child was talking about whales, I would expect their statements about what whales eat to be in a group, and then the child might tell me about where they live. But if they are all over the place then that child definitely needs more practice with narration.

 

You might want to listen to SWB lecture on writing in the elementary years. i am pretty sure she talks about the goals of narration.

 

Mentioning of other people's feelings or thoughts?  No. I wouldn't expect that unless it was specifically a part of the story and was discussed in detail. Asking a child to do that is asking for information beyond what most can do.  It requires a lot of extrapolation. I specifically remember SWB talking about the problem with asking a young child a question like "How do you think Pocahontas felt".  She pointed out that can a very difficult task for a grammar stage child and you are unlikely to get a very satisfying answer. It's probably not going to be a very nuanced answer.  Now, every child is different and some kids might do that very easily. If so, great. But if a kid isn't there yet, that's ok.

 

At age 7 with both my boys (both big talkers and very much 'feast' kids) I might have started a narration by asking "tell me three things you remember from that story" and called it good. I would repeat their reply back to them in a complete sentences and ask them to repeat that back to me while I wrote it down.

 

If answering questions before a formal narration, I would absolutely prompt, helping them create a complete sentence. So, if the question was "What river did Caesar cross" I would immediately follow that question with the prompt "The river Caesar crossed was called ......" and expect the child will answer with 'The river Caesar crossed was called the Rubicon." If I just got answer of 'the Rubicon' I would respond, "please answer me in a complete sentence. The river Caesar crossed was called....."  Then I might say "tell me about what we just read. Be sure to mention the name of the river."  But, honestly, that is what I loved about SOTW and WWE, that was all done for me.

Edited May 9, 2016 by redsquirrel

[Guest]

Rambling amd only sensical after i remind him that its actually supposed to make sense.Iow his instinct is to throw a bunch of auxillary info in there.

 

Once i make him "stop and compose" his thoughys, he can make it make sense though. He just thinks talking is the best, so the more the better.

[Guest]

I ask simple questions, though. Id ask why, one word, rather than how did someone feel or whatever.

 

And if i think he is wrong, i dont say so. I just want him to answer "why" using the info in his brain in a cogent way.

[hollyhock]

We are using WWE 2.

 

My 8yo son's narrations are as short as possible. If he can get the whole passage summed up in two sentences, he will. Maybe that means he'll be great at summarizing eventually. I can always hope.

 

He needs constant reminders to not begin the narration with "They...." or "He..." and instead tell me who "they" are. Also, reminders not to begin every sentence with "and" or put too many "ands" in each sentence. So sentence structure is pretty basic as of now.

 

Here is what he narrated to me this morning: "Pa, Laura and Mary found bones in the Indian camp. They found ashes where the fire had been and holes in the ground where the tent poles had been put in."

 

Here's one from a couple weeks ago with edits: "Noah and Ida tied a piece of string to the sleeve of his Dad's jacket and then when he tried to put it on, he couldn't get his arm in the sleeve and that would be funny. Noah and Ida thought that would be funny."

 

One more: "The blackbirds were eating all the corn and the oats. Pa was trying to shoot them and he had shot a lot but there were so many that it didn't look like any were disappearing. They started eating them."

 

He isn't as good at narration as his three older brothers were, but I thought I would post these as an example of a very average 2nd grade student. :)

[UCF612]

My older son narrates almost verbatim whatever he's read. We're working on taking the reading and putting it in his own words. But he does speak correctly (grammatically correct and with complete sentences) and in order. No feelings/thoughts until I specifically ask. He's 8, 9 in June.

 

My younger son is far more scattered, has little memory for facts but is much better about putting things in his own words. He's 7 in June.

[caedmyn]

I have a 7.5 YO 1st grader who has ADHD and probably dyslexia. He's only narrating Aesop's fables. He usually has a beginning, middle, and end and is mostly grammatically correct and with fairly complete sentences. I think it'd be hard to get thoughts or feeling out of fables...but anyway, he never does. He's fairly detailed, maybe half as many sentences on average as the fable had. Sometimes he can't remember the beginning, or forgets the second half (maybe 20-25% of the time). I don't do anything but ask him to tell me the story in his own words.

[MistyMountain]

-How many sentences?

He will go on and on and include a lot of details from the story. Orally he will talk for a long time about what happens but it is more then he could copy. We were working on telling it in less sentences so it was easier to copy.

-What will be the grammatical complexity and variety of those sentences?

He will use complex sentences but he also has a tendency to want to start sentences the same. He especially will say and then to start sentences. I just tell him not to start a sentence with and then and he will start it another way.

-Will there be a narrative structure? (beginning, middle, end, conflict/problem to solve, etc.)

He does tell the story in order from beginning, middle and end but he does not really talk about it in terms of conflicts or problems to solve.

-Will there be mention of other people's feelings or thoughts?

Not really.

 

At this age, are you still using supports like pictures, keywords, etc. for narrations? No

 

My daughter at the same age was the opposite. I had to pry a narration out of her and she tried to say as little as possible. She could use complex sentences and when I did finally get one out of her it would be in order and have structure. She would leave things out though and so she needed a lot of prompting.

 

If you want I can pm you a sample.

Edited May 10, 2016 by MistyMountain

[PeterPan]

And if i think he is wrong, i dont say so. 

 

That's wise advice!  :)

[PeterPan]

Hollyhock, thank you for your examples of average narration!  That's very comforting!  

 

Silvermoon, good point about the range.  My dd was like your older.  My ds is much much more complex.  Up until a few months ago he couldn't even ask a question without a prompt.  When asked questions and required to give answers, his replies will always follow the same sentence structure.  Instead of typical academics for LA we've been doing language intervention.  So we go through speech therapy materials to help him understand antecedents of pronouns, notice singular/plural, lots of basics.  It's working and his language skills are now up to average, but his IQ is GIFTED, meaning they're still inadequate for what his brain is thinking.  

 

You know, maybe that answers my question?  Maybe some of this will come together when I get the language up the rest of the way.  I don't want to reinforce repetitive sentence structure by pursuing this before he's ready.  I think we could use some games to improve the sentence flexibility.  There are therapy materials for it too.

 

UCF, that's an interesting point that each child will present differently with their strengths and what they notice in their narratives! Right now what I actually want to get are just informal narratives, like what I did today, what you did on an outing with Grandma, that kind of thing.  But that's such an interesting point that how he thinks and what is significant to him should be showing up.  It's so curious to unlock what is in our kids' heads!

 

Caedmyn, I LOVE your idea of narrating fables.  That's where I had been thinking of starting!  It hadn't occurred to me how conducive they'd be to getting those components.  It's something the school wants and has in his IEP goals, so it's pretty important that we be working on it.  I like your way of phrasing it, that you're just asking him to tell you the story back in his own words.

 

Misty, what a hoot!  My dd was like that, just on and on.  It's clicking in my mind that I'm probably going to need to use some graphic organizers with him.

 

Well this is interesting.  So probably whatever happens is going to be the convergence of where he's at with his language AND his personality.  Thanks for sharing!!