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mamaslearning
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| Posted: Jan 19 2011 at 11:09am | IP Logged
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Here's a quote from this earlier thread.
Quote:
She's now 8 and reads pretty well on her own, but still has a lot of trouble paying attention and actually getting information from what i read aloud to her. I have slowly realized over the last 2 years that she is entirely a non-auditory learner. I think I am/was like that too - always preferred to read something myself than listen. I could never do mental math just from hearing problems out loud, had to write it down either on paper or at least mentally "see" the numbers in my head. We've been using RightStart for math, which relies heavily on mental math and that is what clued me in about dd. And in teaching it, I've gotten much better at doing things mentally, which makes me think she could too, with the right teaching.
So yesterday we were reading our science aloud, and I would stop after each short paragraph and ask her to tell back what she'd heard. Almost nothing. I know this would be such a helpful skill but how do I get her to pay attention to the words she is hearing? The funny thing is, for someone who doesn't learn well auditorily, she's quite auditory herself - constantly singing, humming, repeating things over and over like one line of a song 20 times. Maybe she doesn't "hear" b/c she's got so much going on in her head??
Karen T |
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I think this is my daughter as well. She does much better when she reads or does something herself (tactile). Has anybody seen their non-auditory learner develop attention and listening skills doing narration exercises? I'm trying to find the balance of too much versus too little auditory learning for her.
Looking for some insight and encouragement from all you wonderful ladies that have BTDT. 
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Lara
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Taffy
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| Posted: Jan 19 2011 at 1:14pm | IP Logged
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I've been having my son read aloud to me and narrate after. He's very visual and has a delay with expressive language so his narrations aren't great at the best of times but I've noticed a better retention when he reads things himself too. By having him read aloud to me, I am able to better gauge his reading ability and help with vocabulary issues, etc. It's been helping with attention a lot and I think it's been helping with his listening skills too.
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SuzanneG
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| Posted: Jan 19 2011 at 2:14pm | IP Logged
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Now that these kids are reading....their narrations can come from the things that they are reading on their own. I'd want the DETAILS and the THOUGHT PROCESS to be developed from the things they read on their own. Is this happening?
But, then, of course LISTENING and the HABIT OF ATTENTION is an important skill too....so I'd use VERY SHORT ORAL READINGS to develop the habit of attention.
So there are two different things going on here.....
1. Narration for comprehension and thought development/formulation. Use what they are reading on their own for this. This is where you'd want more detailed narrations, etc.
2. Narration for developing the habit of attention. Use EXTREMELY SHORT READINGS for this. Gradually building up. And, I do mean EXTREMELY SHORT. Starting with 2 sentences if need be and gradually adding more as they are able to tell something back.
In most kids you can do BOTH when you read aloud. It sounds like, with these kiddos, you need to separate them....for awhile anyway.
Typing fast and don't have time to re-read....Does this make sense?
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Jan 19 2011 at 2:45pm | IP Logged
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SuzanneG wrote:
Now that these kids are reading....their narrations can come from the things that they are reading on their own. I'd want the DETAILS and the THOUGHT PROCESS to be developed from the things they read on their own. Is this happening?
But, then, of course LISTENING and the HABIT OF ATTENTION is an important skill too....so I'd use VERY SHORT ORAL READINGS to develop the habit of attention.
So there are two different things going on here.....
1. Narration for comprehension and thought development/formulation. Use what they are reading on their own for this. This is where you'd want more detailed narrations, etc.
2. Narration for developing the habit of attention. Use EXTREMELY SHORT READINGS for this. Gradually building up. And, I DO mean EXTREMELY SHORT. Starting with 2 sentences if need be and gradually adding more as they are able to tell something back.
In most kids you can do BOTH when you read aloud. It sounds like, with these kiddos, you need to separate them....for awhile anyway.
Typing fast and don't have time to re-read....Does this make sense? |
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Yes! This makes perfect sense!
For a non-auditory learner, choose one thing to read aloud that is extremely short like Suzanne suggests. I'd pull out something that would almost function as a dictation selection. Read it aloud. Ask the child to tell it back. Close the book and be done. Here is where a short selection and a short lesson work to your advantage! Keep that lesson extremely short so that you have the child's full attention the whole time. Gradually, slowly increase the selection read aloud.
** I wouldn't stop reading aloud longer, meatier selections - I just wouldn't ask a child to narrate those back to me yet. I'd also make sure to ALWAYS include an oral reading in this child's lineup every year to continue building the habit of attention to something auditory. For an older child this would probably begin to take the shape of books on CD, and the like.
** Does the child feel pressure to remember, put everything together, and tell it back...and isn't enjoying the story, and thus can't tell back enough to amount to a hill of beans? Narrating is NOT easy. Too much at once is overwhelming to a child. Simply pulling back and starting small builds habits a little at a time that you can build on.
** Does the child need to be wiggly and active during a reading? I have a child like this. Even with the wiggliness and activity, this child remembers and can narrate very well. Activity (even that which seems excessive and somewhat annoying [to me]) does not equal inattention.
** Is the book you're reading from a living book? I ask this because I've asked my children to narrate before, from books that I thought could be narrated, and they just could.not.do.it. Because my children are good narrators at this point, I was able to look more critically at that book and determine that it was more fact than IDEA. Factual blurb books simply cannot be narrated well (at all?). There may be other ways to sum them up, but asking for an oral narration from a child after reading a book like this will be overwhelming and result in a child with a glazed over, incredulous look. Ask me how I know!
** As Suzanne recommends, I WOULD continue asking for books to be read independently along with narrations following those readings. Let the details come out on these narrations.
I think I'm mostly echoing Suzanne, but at the risk of sounding redundant, I'd:
1) Ask the child to continue to narrate after independent reading.
2) Continue reading aloud for the sheer enjoyment.
3) Read aloud small (dictation size) selections and ask for narrations from those to build the habit of attention for read alouds. Increase content amount slowly.
4) Check to ensure that all books/thoughts that I'm asking a child to narrate are living books and ideas, not a factual blurb book.
5) Resolve to gently, but consistently work on auditory attention span over the years.
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Jen Mackintosh
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SuzanneG
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| Posted: Jan 19 2011 at 3:16pm | IP Logged
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Mackfam wrote:
| ** I wouldn't stop reading aloud longer, meatier selections - I just wouldn't ask a child to narrate those back to me yet. |
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Yes...don't stop doing read-alouds or reading "meaty-things." You're just not asking for a narration with them.
I do this with my new-narrators.....they listen to the meatier-read-alouds with the older dc, but I don't ask for a narration.
I ask for narrations on the things she is reading on her own OR on the very, very short selections that we do together when she is by herself.
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Suzanne in ID
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ekbell
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| Posted: Jan 19 2011 at 6:23pm | IP Logged
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As an non-auditory learner, I can't say that my main problem is exactly Paying Attention but rather Following Along. I have a hard time thinking about what's being said and continuing to listen at the same time and I have a hard time remembering things if I haven't thought about them.
These are the things that have helped me when trying to get something from lectures and homilies.
Never try to follow a lecture cold, always read about or discuss the subject matter ahead of time. With homilies this means always studying the Sunday readings before Mass. This means I've done some Thinking ahead of time and can thus spare more of my focus on following what is being said.
Take notes whenever possible, I took a note taking class in high school which focused on figuring out what was important in the lecture and taking rapid notes. Other useful tactics when in University were buying pre-written notes and adding to them during lectures and finding out which professors wrote on the board. Even simple pictographs or a list of key words can be very useful when trying to remember what was said.
In smaller, less formal settings ask and discuss. This both helps me confirm that I've followed correctly and makes it easier for me to remember. The habit of narration would fit well here if broken down into teeny-tiny chunks. Ideally idea or event sized chunks, (if the material can't be broken down by idea or event then I'm better off finding another source of information-such as a written list)
With something like a homily where neither note-taking or discussion is appropriate, I've needed to focus on catching the Main Idea. If I've caught the Main Idea soon enough, it's easier to remember more details.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Jan 19 2011 at 6:58pm | IP Logged
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sometimes you can get more from a more difficult for the individual learning method by combining it with something else.. for instance, a kinesthetic learner might need to move something (swing feet, twiddle thumbs, use a squeeze ball etc) while listening vs sitting still and trying to listen.
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Karen T
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| Posted: Jan 19 2011 at 10:04pm | IP Logged
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Thanks Jen, for nudging me back into this discussion (I wrote the orig part last year about my dd. I have to say that not much has changed along those lines. She is a pretty good reader on her own, and can read aloud to me well, but then when asked a question about one sentence she just read, she often has no idea. yet she will read whole books and seem to enjoy them, so she must get enough comprehension out of them to get that. She does better with fiction than non-fiction (those facts!) but even with me reading fiction aloud she is easily distracted. I have found that having her right next to me on the couch or bed (best) keeps her attention best. If she is on the couch and i am in the chair she is not "there."
I have been having her work on small readings and answering comprehension questions but I've had to teach her how to go back and look for the answers if she doesn't remember them. This is usually just a paragraph or so. But we're making slow progress there.
I do suspect she has at least some mild ADHD, as she is completely unable to sit still in a chair at the table without knocking it over, and if on the floor she is doing somersaults, etc. Sitting next to me seems to anchor her somehow. We also think she may have Tourette syndrome b/c of all the oral and facial tics and noises. My older son has it so we are pretty familiar with it but I wasn't expecting it in her (much less common in girls)and had just put down all those things as "phases." It may be that when she is listening to me read she is expending so much energy on either being still or controlling the tics that she is unable to focus long.
I'm just glad that the year-long cough/throat clearing tic is gone. At least the new one is musical, though highly repetitive and annoying too 
But you've reminded me to work on narration again and that's a good thing.
karen
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: Jan 20 2011 at 6:17am | IP Logged
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SuzanneG wrote:
1. Narration for comprehension and thought development/formulation. Use what they are reading on their own for this. This is where you'd want more detailed narrations, etc.
2. Narration for developing the habit of attention. Use EXTREMELY SHORT READINGS for this. Gradually building up. And, I do mean EXTREMELY SHORT. Starting with 2 sentences if need be and gradually adding more as they are able to tell something back.
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Makes sense. Thanks for the lightbulb moment!
Mackfam wrote:
Is the book you're reading from a living book? I ask this because I've asked my children to narrate before, from books that I thought could be narrated, and they just could.not.do.it. Because my children are good narrators at this point, I was able to look more critically at that book and determine that it was more fact than IDEA. Factual blurb books simply cannot be narrated well (at all?). There may be other ways to sum them up, but asking for an oral narration from a child after reading a book like this will be overwhelming and result in a child with a glazed over, incredulous look. Ask me how I know!
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This might be part of our problem. I think some of the books are more factual even though they are in a storylike form.
Thank you for all the comments. I still feel like I need someone to hold my hand  through all this since it's my first year, but I'm hoping my confidence will grow as we continue on this journey.
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Lara
DD 11, DS 8, DS 6, DS 4
St. Francis de Sales Homeschool
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: Jan 20 2011 at 6:47am | IP Logged
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Taffy wrote:
| I've been having my son read aloud to me and narrate after. He's very visual and has a delay with expressive language so his narrations aren't great at the best of times but I've noticed a better retention when he reads things himself too. By having him read aloud to me, I am able to better gauge his reading ability and help with vocabulary issues, etc. It's been helping with attention a lot and I think it's been helping with his listening skills too. |
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She reads to me daily, so having her narrate afterwards would be easy to start. I'll try this and see how it goes. Thanks!
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Lara
DD 11, DS 8, DS 6, DS 4
St. Francis de Sales Homeschool
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Topic: Narration/Non-auditory
