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Not really loving WWE...


tdbates78
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We are new to WWE. My 7 year old 2nd graders are using WWE 1 and we are in the 4th week. They are fine with the copy work, but the narration not so much. I've posted before about my daughters' difficulties with listening/read-aloud time. It's something we are constantly working on, it is getting better, but they are just not in a place where they can listen to three or four paragraphs and write about it. They look at me like they don't know what to do and then there are tears and finally I have to pretty much come up with the sentence after coaxing some kind of thought out of them. It's frustrating, I'm not entirely sure it's doing anything for them and basically its just not working well. Anyone else had troubles with WWE? I'm trying to decide if I should stick it out and hope we get over a hump or if I should move on to something else? They aren't great writers so I really want something to work. 

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The fact they're struggling says to me you should stick with it.  But I would do a ton of handholding.  It's been a long time since I've done WWE1, but when you ask them the questions and they look at you while they're lost, tell them what they should write, have them repeat it back, and then have them write it.  Use a whiteboard and write it so they can copy it.  But make them say it first.  Once they're comfortable, you can start to back off.  It's a skill to be learned, and support them enough that there are no tears.  They'll get it.  

Edited by JudoMom
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We are in WWE2, and my DS isn't a good writer(physical) so I don't make him write what he narrates. 

 

I explain the background provided in the manual, read the paragraphs, then ask the questions, and DS answers verbally. I thought in WWE1 they ask you, the parent, to write down their "what's one thing you remember from the passage?" for them and then they are supposed to copy it. 

 

If they can't remember something, go back and read the part of the passage for them again. If after reading the paragraphs, and they can't remember "one thing" from the passage, I ask the questions again, and remind them that the answer to the question (that he knew quite readily) is actually "something from the story." Sometimes he got caught up in trying to remember something "new" from the story that wasn't in the questions. 

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Are you requiring them to write their own narration? My kids dictate it to me and I write it for them. For level one, just a short synopsis of what happened is fine. It's just to get them to tell you about it. Level two begins training a proper summary.

 

Yes.

 

Narration = tell me what happened (verbally)

Dictation = write down what I just said (begins in level 2)

Copywork = copy down what you can see written down in front of you

 

The nice thing (for me) about WWE is that everything is highly scaffolded for the student. There isn't any open ended "write what you think" type exercises like I was used to in school. 

 

OP, I think it might take longer than 4 wks to get the hang of. I know I was still struggling to understand the rhythm and purpose of WWE in week 4 of level 1. Once I got it clear in my mind, it made it so much easier to teach.

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I ask them to narrate back to me and I write it down on the write board. Sometimes I ask them to then copy it into their workbooks. They just flat out do not listen well and cannot repeat anything back to me. They space out and clearly aren't paying attention. It's been like this since way back when we did mommy-and-me storytimes at the library and part of the reason I pulled them out of public school last year. One of my girls as HF autism but neither like being read to. Today was a section from Rumpelstiltzkin. The only thing we could come up with was "the girl cried". And that was with me reading it three times and lots of whining and moaning and groaning. 

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Step it back and only find them a small chunk to narrate, just a few sentences. When they master that then add a little more. Just go at their pace. Close WWE and do a couple small narrations a week. That is how you will build both their tolerance and their aptitude.

 

Make sure you are starting by giving prompting questions "what do you remember happened first?" "Then what else do you remember?" "Can you see a picture in your mind of it?"

 

Maybe you need to just start with picture narrations. Draw a pic of something we read (or just a picture of whatever they want) and tell me about it. Sometimes that is the best place to start.

 

Also, don't do their narrations together if you are. I do all of my children separately.

Edited by nixpix5
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I'll stick with it. I know this is a skill they need to learn, even if it's brings about frustratration and aggravation from all three of us. I'm guilty of trying to do it with them together and I agree that it makes much more sense to do it with each one separately so I will start doing that asap. I'm also going to start only reading one or two paragraphs until they start getting the hang of it. Their attention span is just super low when it comes to listening to a reading passage. 

 

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions!

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I just wanted to add that my son mostly enjoyed WWE 1, but when he hit WWE 2 and started summaries and dictations, he complained and whined and cried. A few weeks in, things got better as the new skills got easier for him. I'm glad I stuck with it because I have seen improvement in his journal writing and other areas. I think we (homeschoolers) can be too quick to throw in the towel. I'm glad you are going to stick with it because learning new skills can be difficult but worth it in the end.

ETA: Changed my wording, felt original was a little harsh and that's not how I intended it.

Edited by MyLife
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You mentioning that you have had troubles with listening and read alouds suggests that your twins may also have some auditory processing or auditory-memory issues that you might want to get them tested for. They may be struggling to hear/remember more than just 1-2 sentences of read-aloud, especially if there are no pictures to provide visual support in understanding and remembering what's going on in a story.

 

What about adding a little time to your schedule to practice/strengthen auditory memory skills with each child?

- How to Help Your Child With an Auditory Processing Disorder

- Short Term Auditory Memory Activities

- Brain Training Activities for Auditory Attention

- Listening Skill Games for First Grade

 

Also, I hate to say this, because it would drastically increase YOUR time and effort, but perhaps you would have more attention/focus from each student if you did WWE with each student separately, with the other student in another room with a closed door doing some other activity so that the sibling can't be a visual/auditory distraction. Also, it could reduce the tears and whining, if there is no twin right there also engaging in the same behavior/attitude, or to be an "appreciative audience" to the tears and drama. ;)

 

It's also possible that they are not quite ready for the step up to the harder skills, and taking a short side-step and working with some other supplement for a few weeks/months allows for "simmering on the back burner" of the brain, and when you try the program again later, the brain has matured into the skills needed. This worked with DS#2 here who struggled greatly with Math (and Spelling and Writing) -- we would set aside the spine math program for a week or a month and use a supplement (often on a completely different topic than the troublesome topic), and when we would come back to the spine, the troublesome topic often was no longer a problem... Just a thought!

 

BEST of luck, in finding what works for your students!

 

 

 

ETA -- oops! I responded before reading through the whole thread, so disregard anything that was already covered by other posters or that you already made decisions about! :)

Edited by Lori D.
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I'll stick with it. I know this is a skill they need to learn, even if it's brings about frustratration and aggravation from all three of us. I'm guilty of trying to do it with them together and I agree that it makes much more sense to do it with each one separately so I will start doing that asap. I'm also going to start only reading one or two paragraphs until they start getting the hang of it. Their attention span is just super low when it comes to listening to a reading passage. 

 

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions!

 

Have you tried action stories?  I'd try that as a fun way to engage them.  They have to be listening for the key words in order to complete the actions, so they are building skills without realizing it.  Stealth learning is my favorite kind of learning...lol

 

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It's rough in the beginning when you first start working on this skill. I actually have found it immensely helpful in how this slowly builds up the skill. When my son wouldn't recall things, I would re-read the relevant section after reminding them of the question. Then he was actively listening. It's super incremental and well worth the progress in getting there. When I look back at where we started to where we are now...the progress is amazing.

The fact that he can hold a dictation was a huge breakthrough. (I break it in chunks adding another phrase until he has the whole thing). His written narrations and summaries are wonderful now. I thought that day would never come when we first started out.

 

Edited by calbear
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You might also try allowing them to follow along with you as you read, instead of just reading it to them. That helped both my kids a lot. Some of the passages in WWE are more difficult than others. For the more difficult ones, you might have to read through the entire story twice before you start asking them questions. 

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I'll stick with it. I know this is a skill they need to learn, even if it's brings about frustratration and aggravation from all three of us. I'm guilty of trying to do it with them together and I agree that it makes much more sense to do it with each one separately so I will start doing that asap. I'm also going to start only reading one or two paragraphs until they start getting the hang of it. Their attention span is just super low when it comes to listening to a reading passage.

 

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions!

I have first grade twin boys and I am guilty of trying to do narrations together. Oh my goodness was that a catastrophe haha! :) One of my boys has ASD and struggles with listening to stories, retention, and just getting his thoughts out in a clear way. He is definitely the "squirrel squirrel" kid. Here is what I did for him...

 

We would watch his favorite show together...about 10 min and I would have him narrate that back to me once a week. Another day he would draw a picture of a story we read or one he wanted to draw and I would say "tell me about the picture" and ask questions to draw out more information.

 

I bought a box of sequencing cards from super duper. Best thing ever. I had him sequence them and then "tell me the story"

 

Once he could do this easily, we went to 4 sentence narrations from our reading and we camped out there for quite a few months. I then would add a couple more sentences until I worked up to a nice chunk paragraph. I stayed away from narrations with dialogue at first.

 

I did mock narrations with my husband and let the boys watch us. It was hilarious and my husband would pretend to struggle at parts so I could ask prompting questions. I would allow the boys to chime in with prompting questions.

 

Once we got here, I cracked open WWE and began 1 which is what we are doing now, blended with ELTL 2.

 

Go with your gut and don't fear veering off on your own Avenue with it. Make it fun and go super slow. My little buddy with ASD has had life changing ability to communicate thanks to WTM curriculum. I am in debt to Susan as she has done more for him therapeutically than any other treatment. I am a solid believer in narration and copywork for so many things. Not just becoming a solid writer.

Edited by nixpix5
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I just wanted to throw out there that the selections in WWE vary widely in terms of how easy they are for kids to understand and get something out of. I remember doing Rumpelstiltskin with one kid who was just totally glazed over with it. "The girl cried" would totally suffice for that one, and we'd move on.

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I found my son preferred narrations based on an entire short story, rather than an extract.

 

He just never got into those random paragraphs.

 

I agree 100%.  I would drop WWE like a hot potato and do oral narrations and copywork based on Aesop's Fables.  From there move up to something a little bit longer or more challenging (50 Famous Stories Retold has short stories about historical people/events.)

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I ask them to narrate back to me and I write it down on the write board. Sometimes I ask them to then copy it into their workbooks. They just flat out do not listen well and cannot repeat anything back to me. They space out and clearly aren't paying attention. It's been like this since way back when we did mommy-and-me storytimes at the library and part of the reason I pulled them out of public school last year. One of my girls as HF autism but neither like being read to. Today was a section from Rumpelstiltzkin. The only thing we could come up with was "the girl cried". And that was with me reading it three times and lots of whining and moaning and groaning.

I know it's more work for you, but could you separate them and do it twice? And I would just do lots of hand holding. Maybe read a couple of very simple sentences even not from WWE to have the hang of it. If they are writing elsewhere, maybe penmanship, maybe cut back the writing, or tell them they only have to write one word of it without complaint and they are done, then work up.

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I'll stick with it. I know this is a skill they need to learn, even if it's brings about frustratration and aggravation from all three of us.

 

I don't have any advice for you because I never did narrations and never dealt with what you are dealing with.  But I would really urge you no matter what you decide on to find a way that does not involve a lot of frustration and aggravation!  Especially at those young ages.  I think many of us have had the unfortunate experience of 'pushing through' and causing tears and then later wishing we had either waited for more maturity or found another way.

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Thank you all again. It's so great to get been-there-done-that advice from other homeschooling parents. I'm going to try to stick it out, but if it doesn't work I will switch to Aesop's Fables or start reading passages from our read-alouds or even start with their readers to ask that they narrate. I do think it would be easier if they are familiar with the book or story instead of just reading a few random paragraphs from the middle of a story they know nothing about. I also purchased a few issues of BW Quiver of Arrows awhile back that I could try. They do get writing practice as we use Spelling You See and Zaner-Bloser as well as dictation or copywork from FLL and the geography and vocabulary workbooks that we use daily.

 

I guess in a way that's why I was questioning WWE. They aren't really getting the narration and I'm not 100% sure the extra writing is necessary. If I just focus on narration I can get that elsewhere.

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We are not using WWE, but we do narrations.  One thing that helps mine is to brainstorm first.  "Tell me who was in the story."  "tell me an action from the story."  I write the random words on a sheet of blank paper and then write a number one underneath.  "What happened at the beginning?  And then?"  It helps immensely to organize his thoughts (and will eventually be a pre-cursor to outlining).

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How are they with the direct questions from the passage? Are they able to answer those questions? If so, then I think you can definitely work with them on the what do you remember parts. Remind them to start simply with something they remembered, not necessarily the whole story or sequence of events.

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… I'm going to try to stick it out, but if it doesn't work I will switch to Aesop's Fables or start reading passages from our read-alouds or even start with their readers to ask that they narrate. I do think it would be easier if they are familiar with the book or story instead of just reading a few random paragraphs from the middle of a story they know nothing about… If I just focus on narration I can get that elsewhere.

 

This is very wise. Going with something they are already familiar with lets you focus in on the skill of narration, and eliminates the potential interference of a secondary problem (listening and comprehension).

 

As the saying goes: pick you battle. Right now, for your family, it's about "how can we learn how to do narration" -- not about "how can we do WWE exactly as written". For us, we had to pick the battle about when to require writing; DS#2 struggled SO much with the act of writing in the early elementary years, that I ended up scribing for him a lot so that we could focus on the actual math or grammar concepts, rather than wasting all of his day's allotment of "brain battery energy" for learning on a struggle about handwriting and getting him to write down answers. ;)

 

BEST of luck! Warmly, Lori D.

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IIRC WWE has questions, right? You read the passage and then ask a series of questions which basically elicit a narration. When my dd was tiny, I would let her answer the question into my voice memo app. I would pause it, ask the next question, and then record the next answer. If you do this and then replay it you'll hear a complete narration. She loved it.

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I think there is a difference between saying there is value in the skill of narration, and you must stick with WWE to accomplish that. The comprehension questions in WWE were too much detail for my oldest dd. It induced tears all.the.time. We made it halfway through WWE 2 and then moved on. My dd could actually narrate ok, she just cried over the comprehension questions and the dictation. We switched to Narrations using fairy tales and Aesops Fables etc., and doing BraveWriter style Narrations and dictations. Dd improved her comprehension and Narrations when I did them in context (I.e. from our read aloud vs. excerpt).

 

Narration skills are important, relationship is more important. I suggest finding a way to learn to summarize that is not as traumatizing, ;)

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It sounds like narration would be very beneficial for them to learn. You can scale the activity and slowly build their ability. Try doing one paragraph instead of 4. Stop after each one and just say, "What the heck happened right there?" Or have them act out the passage. Or have them draw a picture of what you read, then describe the picture to you. Be creative, and make is super simple, silly, and fun to begin with. Use stories they are more familiar with and motivating--even cartoons. Do picture descriptions where they describe a painting. Make it a goal that they can participate in a more traditional narration practice by next year, and just slowly, slowly get them into the practice as sneakily and as lightly and enjoyably as you can. When things are at a stale mate, it's important to shift gears to "errorless learning" practices, with the goal of eventual mastery. 

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My first grader is having a bit of a hard time getting the hang of WWE narrations.  What I have been doing is reading the questions one at a time before I read the selection.  So I read him the first question, and then we read the selection until we find the answer.  Then I read the second question, and so on.

 

When we get to the narration, I keep my expectations REALLY low.  The prompt is simply one thing he remembers about the story, and that I all I expect from him.  If he responded with something like "The girl cries.", the first thing I would do is praise him for answering in a complete sentence.  That is one of the main goals of the questions and the narrations, and that might not be a very interesting sentence, but it clearly is a complete sentence.  Then, if I thought he was up to it, I might prompt him a bit to add one small detail to the sentence like the girl's name, the reason she cried or an adjective describing the girl.  Still, the final narration might look like "The little girl cries." or "The girl cries because she is sad."  I would be fine with either of those and I would write it down for him.

 

My older autistic son who is in third grade, is currently working in WWE 3, and his narrations have come a long way just from working his way through the program.  We never strive for perfect narrations, but every day I guide him to make one small improvement on his narration and then we move on.  Over time...lots and lots of consistent practice over the years...all those small improvements have added up and now he is a confident, capable narrator who can produce logical, complete, paragraph-long oral narrations and very solid, single sentence, written narrations.

 

Wendy

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My son's preferred way of learning is not auditory, and FLL was agonizing to him, but we do stick with WWE. Sometimes it's personality/Learning style, and sometimes it's maturity. We did a picture narration today, and he hated it. He also hates open ended writing prompts that his charter school made him do on occasion last year. However, I have to look at the long road. Writing is going to require writing in your head to put thoughts onto paper.

 

Some suggestions:

 

1. WWE workbook is for convenience with selected passages, etc. It was first written as one book meant for you to choose the passage within certain parameters. I have done both, and the workbook is definitely easier on the parent, but my oldest son much preferred the short stories I chose.

 

2. Consider maturity. Maybe the answer isn't to throw in the towel, but shelve for a bit. Sometimes homeschoolers think something isn't a good fit when there may be a maturity gap. Actively ask questions while you read and look at art for a month or so to build the skills and then pick it up again.

 

3. The issue doesn't seem to be WWE as much as it is actively listening. Try to build their stamina with some out loud reading first so they can strengthen these skills. Maybe they're just not ready quite yet, and that's ok. Homeschooling affords flexibility as long as we avoid the temptation to abandon challenges completely and meet the child where they are and incrementally work with them to meet the goal.

 

I also agree to separate them for formal narrations.

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