Megicce Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 We are using SOTW 3 for history this year, and my elder kiddo (3rd Grade) is just not a master of short, succinct narrations that hit all the major points. (Shocking, right?) She can retell me almost the entire chapter in detail if prompted, but when I ask her to summarize, she doesn't know how to pull out the most important parts and will often give me either a string of random unrelated facts about the chapter or seventeen sentences of summary with way too much detail. I'm not sure how to teach her, at this age, how to pull out the most pertinent facts for a narration. This is something that comes naturally to me, but doesn't seem to at all for her. We are both frustrated and it's getting to the point where she hates doing narrations because she feels like she's always doing it "wrong." I know we'll be outlining in later grades, and that's supposed to help, but it seems by the examples in the SOTW workbook that I should be expecting her to be able to pull out the most pertinent facts already. Any tips for this age? Both for realistic expectations on my part (like, maybe her narrations aren't always going to look like the ones in the SOTW workbook?) and/or for ways to help her learn this? Thank you!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiara.I Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 WWE 2 and 3 work specifically on this skill. How has she done with those, or has she got there yet? You can use the same kind of strategy for SOTW: if you're using the activity guide, ask the comprehension questions, and then ask three questions that summarize the main narrative thread. From those answers, she can build her narration. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megicce Posted January 19, 2017 Author Share Posted January 19, 2017 (edited) WWE 2 and 3 work specifically on this skill. How has she done with those, or has she got there yet? You can use the same kind of strategy for SOTW: if you're using the activity guide, ask the comprehension questions, and then ask three questions that summarize the main narrative thread. From those answers, she can build her narration.She's in WWE3 at the moment (we had a move this fall, so she's only about five weeks in atm), but that helps. Asking the leading questions does really seem to help her put it together with WWE. Idk why I didn't think of that with this also. I guess it just seems in the SOTW workbook that kids should be able to pull the salient points out of the air. XD Thank you for that!! Still would love to hear other thoughts and suggestions, especially thoughts about realistic expectations at this age. I tend to be a perfectionist and have to reel in my expectations from time to time. Edited January 19, 2017 by Megicce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Milknhoney Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 We focus on summarization skills in WWE. For SOTW, I ignore the sample summary and allow my kids to recall every detail they can. To me, for history, I would rather have them remember everything than worry about trying to summarize it. I think this is especially true for kids who struggle with history (which my son always did). Trying to recall the facts AND summarize is too much to have to do at once, in my opinion. My daughter doesn't struggle the way my son did, so she usually offers more details... I curb her when she starts dialoguing. So we do work on indirect quotations in her case :). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 (edited) The way SOTW is written, I do think it's designed to have a major idea with supporting facts , versus a more dense 'learn a lot ' history text. To help your daughter I suggest asking very leading questions . Not "what is the main idea" but "why did the people of (xyz country) decide it was important to (do whatever ?). " The question reinforces the concepts and guides her in how she'll think of that lesson. The activity book has lots of these questions. Edited January 25, 2017 by poppy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beka87 Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 At your daughter's age, I wouldn't worry about it. Narration and summarizing are skills she will learn over time. As she gets older, if summarizing is still really difficult, it may help to write her narration down or her and go over it together, noting what's essential and what isn't. Right now, though, I think I'd ease up...better to work on it later than have her decide now that she hates it. I've always ignored those sample narrations - they sound like something an adult sat and thought about, wrote down, then edited. It's just not practical to expect that from an eight year old. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redsquirrel Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 Do you have the SOTW activity guide? I found the questions in that were super helpful in guiding my kids to an appropriate narration. It also has instructions like "Tell me in three sentences about...." that my kids found useful. When you get to SOTW 4 the chapters get fairly complicated and then the AG has 'guided narration'. And her problem is pretty common. With dictation it's either feast or famine. My kids were the feast kind as well. They could give me a fully detailed run down, but had a difficult time picking out the most important parts. That is why I liked the questions and guidance in the AG. If I got desperate, I would just tell them to string their answers to the questions together to make their narration...which is kind of the point, but it sometimes eluded them, lol. And yes, WWS does work on that quiet a bit. They actually liked it by then, lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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