1st grader and narration

[hollyhock2]

I'm doing WWE 1 with my first grader, although loosely. My question has to do with narration. She wants to write down her own narration instead of having me write it down. I'm not sure why I wouldn't let her try if she wants to, but how do I handle the spelling and such? Should I watch her and require her to write it down correctly, like I would with dictation?

[astralweaver]

I can’t speak to what you should do from the perspective of WWE because we didn’t use that series, however, one of my kids frequently wanted to write her narrations at  that age as well.

She had different motivations about it so you might have to figure out what inspires your daughter. Sometimes, my girl just wanted to practice her “fancy writing” (cursive). So I’d write her narration on the white board and let her copy it. This eliminated the potential spelling dilemma. In other instances, she wanted to use her narration as a jumping off point for a story, so I would either encourage her to make up a play or act it out, or to do a drawn narration and let her go nuts adding details. Lastly, she had a big streak of “I can do it myself!” So I would just let her. I explained that she could ask me how to spell a word if she wanted to, otherwise, I’d just let her do it.

The reason I went with that is because in CM circles, when kids are beginning regular written narrations, you don’t insist on correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar (at first). It’s about communicating their understanding of the info on paper. As the weeks go by and their written narrations become easier or more fluent, then you introduce the editing process. 

My kid stopped wanting to write narrations as she aged into second grade, but now in third, she’s starting to show interest again as she watches me work with older sister on her written narrations. 

[hollyhock2]

Thanks, that's helpful. I had also thought maybe I would let her copy it instead of doing it on her own. So far this week, she is content to let me write it down, but we'll see what happens.

[Zoo Keeper]

9 hours ago, hollyhock2 said:

Thanks, that's helpful. I had also thought maybe I would let her copy it instead of doing it on her own. So far this week, she is content to let me write it down, but we'll see what happens.

For one of mine who wanted to do it himself before he really was ready, I would write key words that I thought he would need help with on the white board and casually leave it on the table and walk away.  I didn't make him use it, but it was there...  Usually he would end up peeking at the board when he thought I wasn't looking. 🙂

My other less stubborn kids were happy to help me come up a sentence that I wrote on the white board and they copied onto their paper.

[Homeschoolmom3]

Funny, normally kids hate writing narrations down.  I would let her at it and if she gets "tired" you can finish writing it for her.  I would also do like someone mentioned above any difficult words or "key" words that you think she might need I would write out for her on the board.  Then let her at it.  You can after she is done point out one or two things (TOPS) don't want to discourage her - that she did incorrectly and them take a mental note for yourself and then move on.  She'll get it.

[hollyhock2]

1 hour ago, Homeschoolmom3 said:

Funny, normally kids hate writing narrations down.

Tell me about it! I just had boys before she came along, and none of them ever wanted to do this. 😄