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MarilynW
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| Posted: July 23 2012 at 8:23pm | IP Logged
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Please would you share how you organize daily oral narrations on various subjects with children at different grade levels. I am trying to figure out a daily schedule that works - and with 5 school age children this year, I am trying to work out how best to do this.
Do you schedule a single daily meeting time with each child individually and cover narrations for all subjects? Or do you do the narrations as soon as the work is completed?
For the older ones I have a weekly meeting on Fridays - but this is more for review and discussion and goal setting. For the younger ones I am more hands on throughout the day and so it is easier to fit in narrations. We do have a family block first thing in the morning - similar to Jen's "Morning Basket" time that we call "Hive Time"
Thanks for any suggestions.
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stellamaris
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| Posted: July 23 2012 at 8:39pm | IP Logged
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For the older children (14+), I always listened to any narrations during our "meeting time". Most of their work was written by that age, but there was a pretty big age gap between my older and younger students which made it possible to have some do only written narrations.
With the three younger ones, I listen pretty much as we complete the work. I think the idea behind narrating includes the notion that attending and then re-presenting the material in one's own words cements the learning that is taking place, so I don't think you want to have too great of a time separation between exposure to the material and oral narration. I try to combine the children as much as possible, sometimes into two groups, sometimes even having all three do the subject together. The age range is effectively 3 years or maybe more, due to one son having special learning needs. But we manage to combine history, science, nature study, composer, picture study, poetry, geography, Bible/Catechism.
Can you combine any subjects? Then they can all narrate together.
When we narrate as a group, I choose one child to begin. Then I either ask the other children if they can add anything, or I come up with a different focus for their narration (a slightly different question or description). I try to make sure to begin with a different narrator each time, so every has a chance to do a complete narration and not just an "add-on" one.
At times when I haven't been able to combine the children or group them together somehow, I just choose one or two subjects a day for narration. This is usually the case with literature and math. It really gets too time consuming to narrate every subject for every child when you have a crew! Especially if they are all still in the oral narration stage.
You might choose different subjects to narrate each day of the week, and that way they do have a chance to engage with different kinds of material and information. This is how we try to do any written narrations-e.g., history on Monday, science on Tuesday, etc.
Another idea is to have a child occasionally narrate using a cassette tape. You can listen later, but they have to advantage of interacting with the learned material immediately. Plus, it's always cool to listen to yourself talk!!! 
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Caroline
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Mackfam
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| Posted: July 23 2012 at 8:46pm | IP Logged
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The younger the narrator, the closer to their actual reading that I ask for the narration. My energy and focus and effort goes into building the habit of narration with young narrators because children will narrate silently (to themselves) once narration becomes a habit.
For older students, they must be PREPARED to narrate ALL their reading, but on average, I usually only ask for 2 - 3 a day. They don't know which 2 - 3 books I'll ask them to narrate from though, so they have to bring full attention to all their reading and be prepared to narrate it all. And sometimes I ask for more if I have enough time. Older students are also writing 1 - 2 narrations a day, so some of their narrations come to me in written form which covers some good ground.
I do not schedule time for narrations, I just list expected narrations on lesson plans so I have a visual marker that tells the child I expect a narration of the reading, and reminds me that I wanted a narration. It's pretty simple, it just looks like this which is listed under the page count to be read for a book that day:
O Narration
Narrations happen pretty organically in our days. If we're doing handwork, or I'm...cooking, cleaning, folding, washing, wiping, driving, pushing a swing, walking....and even if we're SWIMMING...I ask for narrations! The kids just love it when I choose someone to get on the "narration floaty".
If I get to the end of the day and realize I haven't heard any narrations, I'll grab a set of lesson plans and just carve out 10 or so minutes and ask for two summary narrations from my older students.
For my high schooler, I do ask for narrations of material well beyond the time which she read it. So for example, at our weekly meetings, I might ask her to bring me up to date on a particular book's narrations. This is why I REALLY, REALLY focus on building the habit of narration in the earlier years. I couldn't ask for a narration from a student a week (or more) beyond when they read the book if they had not already been silently narrating to themselves.
In an average week, I probably hear 80% of the narrations from the older students' reading which is pretty good to me because they read A LOT!!! I like hearing narrations, so I just make it a priority when it isn't fitting in naturally.
Morning Basket narrations: happen within Morning Basket time. I love group narrations! The older narrators do all the teaching and modeling for those younger students and the kids narrating together is wonderful! Very, very fruitful narration time!
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Jen Mackintosh
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MarilynW
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| Posted: July 23 2012 at 9:14pm | IP Logged
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Thank you Caroline and Jen. Many good ideas.
I find the narration hardest at middle school level - and this is where I want to schedule the time.
I like group narrations - we tend to do for our theology at hive time - the only thing is that everyone wants to talk all the time!
Thank you again.
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Marilyn
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: July 24 2012 at 12:24pm | IP Logged
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We are doing group narrations like Caroline described right now. I only have a 6 year old beginning narrator and an 8 year old reluctant narrator at this point, though. We do most of their subjects together- history, science, nature study, art, etc... pretty much everything except math and language arts. I just alternate who narrates first so that they can take turns doing a thorough narration or an 'add-on' narration like Caroline said.
It's working really well for us currently.
If I want to address any narration pointers I talk to them about it during their private time with me.
I am actually finding that group narrations are helping my older son, who has really struggled with narrations from the beginning.
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: Daily narration with several children
