Narration and reading aloud

[Clarita]

DS7 can read chapter books. So at the end of last year he requested that he not have to read the books aloud to me, because understandably his mouth gets tired. I'm not naïve I know that he basically will just skip over words he doesn't know. (I showed him how to look it up and he knows he could ask me but he's reading interesting books so he wants to know what happens next and he'll just skip the word and figure out what it is from context.) How do I address this?

I have him narrate after reading (currently he reads 2 chapters a day for his assigned reading book). Sometimes after 2 chapters not much happens. It doesn't feel right to me to have him give me these not much happens narrations. How is this suppose to really look? Or how do I flesh out or connect all these 2 chapter narrations? 

[Lori D.]

1 hour ago, Clarita said:

DS7 can read chapter books. So at the end of last year he requested that he not have to read the books aloud to me, because understandably his mouth gets tired. I'm not naïve I know that he basically will just skip over words he doesn't know. (I showed him how to look it up and he knows he could ask me but he's reading interesting books so he wants to know what happens next and he'll just skip the word and figure out what it is from context.) How do I address this?

Well, if it's solo/free reading, then I didn't worry about it. He could (or not) look up words, or figure it out from context. Both work fine when he's solo reading.

For "school" reading, that's one of many reasons why we continued to do "buddy style" ("you read a page, I read a page") all the way through high school:
- provides "breaks" so your "mouth doesn't get tired" (<-- cute! love the way he expressed that)
- allows for defining words in the moment
- allows for clarifying confusion in the moment
- allows for discussing the work in the moment
- provides practice in out loud reading and future oral presentations -- reading or including appropriate pauses, adding emotion, etc.
- and for DS#2 with stealth dyslexia, that provided crucial support for practicing sounding out words (rather than just guessing at multi-syllable words) -- that was a very weak skill for him and really exhausting for him, so by out loud reading, that helped strengthen those weak "muscles" for him -- and using a blank index card under the line of text he was currently reading was a technique to help keep his dyslexia from skipping lines (I have since read that the blank card should go ABOVE the line of text currently be

For age 7/grade 1-ish, we did about 15 minutes of that aloud "buddy style" reading per sitting -- so, that translated to less than 10 minutes for the student to have to read aloud (alternating with me). Not too much, so not overwhelming.

Maybe you do 15 minutes of "buddy style" out loud with him to double check that he's not skipping, and answer his questions or define words for him in the midst, and let him finish out the rest of the 2 chapters on his own, and not worry about it, since you did a "check in" on how he's doing with reading through that short "buddy style" out loud reading.

re: narration
At age 7, I would keep that short (just a sentence or two), and not every day (maybe 2x/week?), and not for every book -- just pick ONE; so sometimes use the History read-aloud; sometimes have it be the school literature/reading book; sometimes have it be the Science reading... etc.

JMO -- DON'T kill the love of reading literature by turning it into a formal school assignment after coming to the end of every chapter of a book he's really excited to read. 😉

You can encourage the excitement -- and do informal "narration" just by asking him: "Wow! You looked really excited while reading today? What happened in that chapter?" Let him just  informally narrate the highlights of what excited him about what happened. Again, I would NOT do that every single day -- that can make a child feel "pounced on." 😉

And if it flows naturally, a little digging deeper: "What an adventure! What do you think will happen next? (predict) Or, "What did you especially like? Why?" (supporting an opinion) Or, "Is that what you would have done if you had been there?" (creative thinking)

Edited August 6 by Lori D.

[HomeAgain]

This is about the age that we switched to something that was very controlled: books I was reading with him or an Elson reader where he could read a short story/poem and tell me about it - but that also had discussion prompts and questions in it.

Chapter books for fun should be fun, chapter books for school should have me reading the same parts on the same days so we could discuss more than 'read-and-tell'.

[Clarita]

5 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Chapter books for fun should be fun, chapter books for school should have me reading the same parts on the same days so we could discuss more than 'read-and-tell'.

He does have fun books outside of school that I do nothing with, unless he wants to share how amazing it is with me. These are chapter books for school so to speak except that I still allow him to pick (within reason "Wimpy Kid" not allowed). A lot of times he still really enjoys them (a few he requested the rest of the series he reads just for fun not for school).

Hmm... maybe I do need controlled books. I did get a copy of Writing and Rhetoric. The reading and thinking part of that seems perfect to me, but he is not ready for the actual writing required. So, I thought I should postpone it. 

[Nichola]

I used to worry a bit about my son not looking up words he didn’t know, but then I realized that I don’t often look up words I don’t know either! Usually I figure them out through context, and I think kids do the same thing. Knowing how to pronounce a word is often harder than figuring out what it means. My son doesn’t love reading aloud either, so once he finished phonics, I had him start reading me a poem once a week. I try to choose poetry books with vocabulary that is slightly above his reading level (but not so hard that it frustrates him). Poems are typically short, so this doesn’t take too long, and there are usually a few words he either doesn’t know or isn’t sure how to pronounce, so that gives us an opportunity to talk about them. So far this has worked well for us. I’ll add too that we don’t spend much time talking about the poem itself. We just read it for enjoyment, discuss words he didn’t know, and move on.

As far as narration, here are a couple of things I ask myself when I think it isn’t going well:

Is this a good quality book that has enough ideas in it to narrate about? Books with lots of ideas in them are easier to narrate. If the book doesn’t meet that criteria, maybe it would be better as a free read than a school book. Or is narration not going well because the book is too hard? Maybe the book would be better as a read aloud than as an independent book.

Are my expectations appropriate? Narration won’t be spectacular every day or even most days. It’s okay if sometimes narration is just a sentence or two. Sometimes I ask questions like, “So what happened next?” or “How did the chapter start?” if I think there is more going on in the book than what they mentioned. But if I ask and they still don’t have much to say, sometimes it’s okay to just move on. If this happens regularly, though, it could be that the book is not appropriate for this child at this time (too hard, too easy, not a living book, etc.). This is an area where I think seeing my kids as individuals and being flexible myself as teacher are both very important.

Was narration hard today just because this is a valuable skill that can be difficult to master? Some kids can struggle with narration just because putting their thoughts into words is harder for them than it is for other people. But narration is a great way for them to practice communicating ideas in a low-risk environment. So I think the effort is worth it, but I may have to adjust my ideas of what a narration should be because narrating in general is harder for this child.

Edited August 7 by Nichola

[Clarita]

He's great at the narration if he completes the book and I ask what the book is about or what happened. It's the snippet by snippet that I don't think even I understand how to narrate. Sort of like a story where the characters in chapter 2 are collet things to bake a cake in chapter 3 bake the cake and then later in chapter 5 something happens so that the spatula dropping in chapter 3 is important. As you are narrating chapter 2 and 3 it's basically "They bake a cake," and "They baked a cake." Chapter 5 is a great and exciting narration, but 2 and 3 feel like there isn't really much to say. 

[luuknam]

I'm not too concerned about kids not looking up words they don't know - if they read enough they'll eventually learn those words from seeing and hearing them in context often enough. Unless there are so many unknown words that comprehension suffers to the point that they really don't know what's going on, which is unlikely in things they read for fun but possible in assigned reading. I would NOT make a kid look up words for leisure reading for sure. 

My kids are a lot older than 7 (13 and 16), but for literature this year one of their tasks is to write down 10 words a week they encountered in their reading that they didn't know. That should be trivial given the books they're assigned (I've been looking up soooo many words myself). I encourage them to look up additional words they don't know (and which aren't obvious from context - I've actually told them that if they look up every word they don't exactly know their reading will take too long so to be somewhat selective) but don't want to make them spend forever writing definitions. I've also told them to give preference to words that occur multiple times or words that are really preventing them from understanding what's happening. 

We're only in our second week into the school year, but during weekly lit discussion last Friday it was interesting to see which words they'd written down, and we could also discuss comprehension strategies again (one of them wrote down 'antiquarian,' which after discussing its resemblance to 'antique,' they both guessed probably meant old or old-fashioned (with a disclaimer this doesn't always work, of course)). 

Especially with younger kids (who are new to using a dictionary and therefore slow), making them do this should increase the likelihood of them looking up words on their own as they get better/faster at it. For older kids, it can simply instill more of a habit of at least sometimes looking up words rather than rarely or never (my kids mostly use the internet to look up words, because things like "Bath chair*" and 'veld' aren't really going to be in most dictionaries, though I have made them use physical dictionaries when they were younger). Since a 7yo is probably still learning to write, if you're going to have him do this, I'd definitely keep the number of words plus definitions to write down to a minimum - a 1-2 a day, or, if more, at least count that writing as part of their daily writing by reducing other writing.

I'm also making them write down things they didn't understand, or found interesting, surprising, etc, things they'd like to discuss, etc, requiring them to bring some of those to the weekly discussion (for a 7yo, I'd lean much more to daily rather than a weekly, and his observations/questions wouldn't necessarily need to be written). 

*The predecessor of a wheelchair, popular due to people going to Bath, England, in hope of their ailments being relieved, not a chair you put in a shower, lol. Found in our first week's book, which was The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915).

[luuknam]

19 minutes ago, Clarita said:

He's great at the narration if he completes the book and I ask what the book is about or what happened. It's the snippet by snippet that I don't think even I understand how to narrate. Sort of like a story where the characters in chapter 2 are collet things to bake a cake in chapter 3 bake the cake and then later in chapter 5 something happens so that the spatula dropping in chapter 3 is important. As you are narrating chapter 2 and 3 it's basically "They bake a cake," and "They baked a cake." Chapter 5 is a great and exciting narration, but 2 and 3 feel like there isn't really much to say. 

Honestly, I feel that "they gather things to bake a cake" and "they bake a cake" are probably all that should be narrated for those chapters then. I wouldn't worry about it. If he can narrate the book once he finishes the book, that'd be good enough for me (I don't think I'd bother quizzing him on individual chapters for books that simple). 

[Nichola]

22 minutes ago, Clarita said:

He's great at the narration if he completes the book and I ask what the book is about or what happened. It's the snippet by snippet that I don't think even I understand how to narrate. Sort of like a story where the characters in chapter 2 are collet things to bake a cake in chapter 3 bake the cake and then later in chapter 5 something happens so that the spatula dropping in chapter 3 is important. As you are narrating chapter 2 and 3 it's basically "They bake a cake," and "They baked a cake." Chapter 5 is a great and exciting narration, but 2 and 3 feel like there isn't really much to say. 

If this is a well-written book and the reading level is appropriate for him, some days with one sentence narrations are fine, especially if there are also days with longer narrations mixed in.

[wendyroo]

22 minutes ago, Nichola said:

If this is a well-written book and the reading level is appropriate for him, some days with one sentence narrations are fine, especially if there are also days with longer narrations mixed in.

I agree. And I sometimes use a one sentence narration as a base sentence (a la The Writing Revolution), and challenge the student to make that one sentence as informative as possible.

Can they add an adverb to describe how they baked the cake?
Can they add an adjective to describe the cake?
Can they replace the pronoun "they" with the appropriate nouns?
Can they start the sentence with a when or where phrase that hints at the setting?
Can they they tag a "because" or "so" onto the end and add some context?

Those types of questions can help them turn "They baked a cake." into "Late at night, the mice sneakily baked a birthday cake so that it would be a surprise for Jimmy in the morning." And that is a perfectly strong narration, even at only one sentence long.

[Clarita]

2 hours ago, luuknam said:

I'm also making them write down things they didn't understand, or found interesting, surprising, etc, things they'd like to discuss, etc, requiring them to bring some of those to the weekly discussion (for a 7yo, I'd lean much more to daily rather than a weekly, and his observations/questions wouldn't necessarily need to be written). 

I like this idea. 

1 hour ago, wendyroo said:

I agree. And I sometimes use a one sentence narration as a base sentence (a la The Writing Revolution), and challenge the student to make that one sentence as informative as possible.

I hadn't thought about doing that...

[Lori D.]

13 hours ago, Clarita said:

He's great at the narration if he completes the book and I ask what the book is about or what happened. It's the snippet by snippet that I don't think even I understand how to narrate. Sort of like a story where the characters in chapter 2 are collet things to bake a cake in chapter 3 bake the cake and then later in chapter 5 something happens so that the spatula dropping in chapter 3 is important. As you are narrating chapter 2 and 3 it's basically "They bake a cake," and "They baked a cake." Chapter 5 is a great and exciting narration, but 2 and 3 feel like there isn't really much to say. 

That sounds like narration after the end of the book is plenty.
Why unnecessarily do narration with tiny chunks that don't even make sense to you? 😉 
JMO, but he's doing exactly what the point of narration is -- take a lot of information, boil it down to a few essentials, and re-tell in a logical order.

[Lori D.]

12 hours ago, wendyroo said:

I agree. And I sometimes use a one sentence narration as a base sentence (a la The Writing Revolution), and challenge the student to make that one sentence as informative as possible.

Can they add an adverb to describe how they baked the cake?
Can they add an adjective to describe the cake?
Can they replace the pronoun "they" with the appropriate nouns?
Can they start the sentence with a when or where phrase that hints at the setting?
Can they they tag a "because" or "so" onto the end and add some context?

Those types of questions can help them turn "They baked a cake." into "Late at night, the mice sneakily baked a birthday cake so that it would be a surprise for Jimmy in the morning." And that is a perfectly strong narration, even at only one sentence long.

^^ Agree. Instead of it being about narration, it becomes an in-the-moment and in-context grammar or writing lesson. That's the most intuitive type of learning.

Edited August 7 by Lori D.

[EKS]

17 hours ago, Clarita said:

How do I address this?

Have him read aloud to you every day for 20-30 minutes from books that he can read easily.  Gradually increase the reading level of the books.  

(At some point you might also want to give additional instruction in how to sound out multisyllabic words.  I used REWARDS Intermediate with my 7yo, who was a strong reader.  He loved it.)

Then let him read everything else silently.  I'd keep on reading aloud to him as well, from books that will stretch him.

17 hours ago, Clarita said:

How is this suppose to really look?

I don't think it's necessary to narrate everything.  Have a conversation instead, making sure that you are a conversation partner rather than interrogator.  You'll know from that if he got it or not.

[Melanie32]

I had my kids narrate from their history, science, nature book, etc but not from their regular reading books. We talked about them but in a more informal manner. I just wanted my kids to enjoy reading and didn’t want to make it too “schoolish”. I never worried about my kids not looking up words they didn’t know. We did that in other studies so I knew it would all even out over time. I also made my kids read aloud every day so I could see how they were doing for myself. We also sometimes did “buddy reading” like Lori D mentioned.