Help me help my daughter put what she learns into words

[Based on Faith Academy]

My daughter is very smart, but when it comes to vocalizing what she has learned she gets tongue tied. I know the information is there, but when myself or someone else asks her what she has learned her standard reply is,"I don't know." If I ask her to write it down on paper, she has the same issue. If she has a test on the information, she can answer the questions. How do I help her put into words what she has learned? Any ideas would be welcome. TIA

[HomeAgain]

I would probably start by adding simple narration into her day.  Start with a repetitive folk or fairy tale.  Before you read it, tell her that at the end you expect her to retell the story back to you in her own words.  Read, wait a few minutes, and then ask for the retelling.  Start off the next day with asking her to tell you the story again.  If she can't, have her read it silently and then retell it.  Ask her again the next day.

 

The goal is to get her to keep the information in her head.  Once she can do that, branch out to another subject.  Have her read a passage in the science book and then tell you what she read.  Or history.  Or grammar...whatever, have her teach you something once a day.  Then slowly start asking on Friday for 3 things she learned that week.

 

It's the same method I use for my 6yo and he continues to get better.  At the end of each unit I also started asking him for a summary of what he learned, and then asking for summaries of previous units so he didn't just dump the information over the course of the year.

[Alexigail]

How old is your daughter? We are using WWE with both kids and it helps a LOT with this. My son is 9 and struggles with narration but has improved a lot with this program.

[Based on Faith Academy]

Well I seem to have lost my post. Let's see if I can remember what I said.

 

My daughter is ten. She loves to read. She can remember what happened in a book. I don't know where the disconnect is between that and what she learns from school.

 

We went over the election process all day Tuesday, plus we spent most of the past two weeks studying about the presidential elections. Two days later she can't remember a thing.

[Based on Faith Academy]

WWE???

[lizlatorre]

WWE is Writing With Ease by SWB. Also, if your daughter is having trouble with restating on nonfiction learning, but able to tell back a story, she be having trouble "visualizing" the words and concepts in the nonfiction, my son struggles with this alot. We try to use a lot of visual images of concepts to help with this and we also take lots of time to review words in the text. Some history and science texts contain a lot of words that he doesn't understand.

[Alexigail]

https://welltrainedmind.com/samples/

If you go here and click on "writing with ease instructor text". There is a great explanation about how kids develop skills with narration.

[CadenceSophia]

You said a couple different things in your post. First that she can remember but can't get it into words, then that she won't launch into a explanation when asked but will be able to answer specific questions, and then you said that after studying the election process she "can't remember a thing". It might help people give better answers if you can be more specific. Do you think the "I don't know" answer comes from an inability to group all the information into a concise topic/explanatory sentence? Can she answer a leading question that your had directly covered like "What is the role of the Senate?" "What happened with the three brothers after their step-mother invited them to play cards?" Or are those test questions more like multiple choice?

 

My 8 year old has struggled with this but I can't quite tell if we are talking about the same struggle or not and my ideas might be totally irrelevant if not :)

[Based on Faith Academy]

Yes, I do believe she has a hard time putting into thought and words what she has read. If she was given a test with multiple choice answers she would be able to do that, but if she was given a test where she had to write out her answer, more times than not, she would have an issue with that.

[CadenceSophia]

Hmm.. That is a little different than what I have experienced. I would agree with the above that narration is possibly your best solution. That does sound like a rather serious problem if she can't answer a specific leading question in words.

 

I was going to link to the instructions for beginning narration from the Ambleside Online site but there seem to be a few useful pages at least so it would be better to search for and read a few yourself. For the beginner, you don't give a whole story and ask her to narrate but rather just one page or even one paragraph. Stretch it out as she improves. When I was first trying to explain the concept to my son I started with a single sentence. He looked at me like I was going mad, "Mom you just read that. You know as well as I do what it said" but finally he figured out that what I wanted from him was an accurate retelling. It was ok to reuse some of the same language but not to add personal reflections and go off on tangents, at least until the narration was over :) I require narration on anything I expect him to actually remember. His recall of school reads is infinitely higher even than recall of fun reads that he really loved so it definitely works.

[Another Lynn]

Well I seem to have lost my post. Let's see if I can remember what I said.

 

My daughter is ten. She loves to read. She can remember what happened in a book. I don't know where the disconnect is between that and what she learns from school.

 

We went over the election process all day Tuesday, plus we spent most of the past two weeks studying about the presidential elections. Two days later she can't remember a thing.

Are you saying she can remember things from a book (fiction?), but not from factual/ non-fictional sources?

[HS Mom in NC]

I wouldn't expect a 10 year old to remember the whole complex election process after hearing about it on Tuesday.  A history of presidential elections is different than the mechanics of the voting process,and each would be a lot for an adult to articulate, especially when you consider how abstract the concept of the electoral college is.

For some personality types, the easy way out is the most attractive.  It's always easier to say, "I don't now" than to think it through and answer the question. It's always easier to not do something.  I've never met your child and have absolutely no way of knowing if that's applicable to her, but it is an issue for some people.  This would be the kid that usually picks the easy way out in most aspects of their lives.  I have a nephew like this. 

The Activity Book that goes with Story of the World history books includes questions to ask before doing the narration for each reading.  The parent reads aloud the history reading to the child.  Then the parent asks the child the questions listed for that reading to make sure the child understood and retained the basic information. If not, then something has to be done.  Maybe the child needs an easier shorter, less complicated reading to work with until she gets the hang of it.  Maybe the child needs to hear the questions before the reading starts so she can better focus her mind on important ideas and events.   Maybe she needs to hear the reading again.

 

If the child can answer the questions then you can ask say or ask things like: 

Tell me this story in your own words.

If they get stuck or aren't giving enough you can ask things like:

How did this story start? If they don't start at the beginning or skip over something important ask what happened before that.
What happened next? 
Why did that happen?
What did that person/group want? Why?

Then what happened? 
What/how did that person/group think/feel about it/them/that?

Why did that matter?

What did that accomplish?

What did they hope for?

What were the consequences of that?

Scribe for the child, word for word what they said.  Then the child copies it down.

By Story of the World 4 outlining is introduced gradually and the child writes from their outline. The comprehension questions are still there.

 

[Based on Faith Academy]

These are all wonderful suggestions. I loved the information I read from the WWE text about diagramming. I did diagramming with my son, but I never fully understood the necessity of it. I think it's a great way for a student to evaluate their own writing. As I've watched my dd over the past few days since I posted this, I've paid close attention to her reactions to her reading and her writing. I am thinking that she is getting too much information at one time when she reads non-fiction books, while fiction is light weight on the mind. I think her problem is narrowing information down to what is necessary to replay back and what her mind can get rid of. I think that is why when she is given a paper with a multiple choice answer, she is able to remember what happens and can answer the questions specifically. That isn't to say that there might also be a part of her that doesn't want to take the time to think about what actually happened to narrate back to me.