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kristinannie
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| Posted: April 18 2012 at 9:32pm | IP Logged
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My son just turned 6 and I am planning on starting to require formal narrations for next year (1st grade). First of all, I would love to hear some suggestions for getting this started. Right now, we occasionally narrate and I just ask him to tell me what he remembers. Would it help to model narrations now in preparation?
Also, how do you do discussions on the materials you read. I understand the importance of good narrating, but then do you discuss what you read and dig deeper? Or does discussion just naturally come out of narration?
One more question: my 4.5 year old sits in on almost all subjects, but she always interrupts. Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this? I think that it will really cause difficulty with narration for my son.
Thanks ladies! The closer I get to taking this CM leap of faith, but more excited and nervous I get!
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Claire F
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| Posted: April 18 2012 at 10:42pm | IP Logged
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I have found that keeping it simple, light and conversational helps. I think in the beginning, I tended to want more out of him and I inadvertently put pressure on him. I read all about how important narration is, so I kept thinking he needed to be able to tell me more.
Having me relax about it helped him relax and make it less a chore. Also, having reasonable expectations as to what can be narrated from has helped. His best narrations come from Aesop's Fables right now. They are perfect! Short, easy to remember, and interesting little stories. He's capable of narrating longer stories, as we've heard spontaneously when he will launch into the plot of a fairy tale we've read or some other story that was longer. But fables are a great length for practice.
In my (admittedly limited) experience, I have found that keeping it light, and not allowing myself to get too worried about how much he's narrating back to me has helped. It is a skill, and needs to be nurtured and cultivated over time. I'm seeing a big difference this school year in his ability, and willingness, to narrate. Patience is important!
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Claire
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 18 2012 at 11:45pm | IP Logged
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I think this is the thread that just had tons of "what to expect from.." types of answers.. lots of "how to" as well.
Resistant Narrator
And here's the follow up
More on Resistant Narrator
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Jodie, wife to Dave
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 19 2012 at 7:05am | IP Logged
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Claire F wrote:
I have found that keeping it simple, light and conversational helps.
Having me relax about it helped him relax and make it less a chore.
Also, having reasonable expectations as to what can be narrated from has helped. |
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Well, I think Claire really had some wise experience to offer! That relaxing INTO the method is key. I'm only going to bullet Claire's great post:
1) Make sure you're asking for narrations from a living book. Books with fact blurbs cannot be narrated well (by most) and will lead to frustration for you and the new narrator.
2) Don't ask your new narrator to narrate an entire chapter's worth of material at once, keep the reading light and short, breaking up a reading and asking for narrations as you go if you need to.
3) Just ask for one or two narrations a day to begin with and build slowly from there. No fanfare or announcement needed - just start gently, lightly as Claire said, and when you feel you have a good momentum going, ask him to narrate another book from his schedule.
kristinannie wrote:
| my 4.5 year old sits in on almost all subjects, but she always interrupts. Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this? I think that it will really cause difficulty with narration for my son. |
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4) For beginning narrators, I really try to ask for narrations at a time that is as quiet and interruption free as possible. Interruptions may really disrupt their concentration at first. As they get older, they have to learn to narrate with multiple interruptions (around our house anyway  ), and while I'm almost positive Miss Mason didn't have this factor in her method, it means my kids are very memory-strong in their narrations since they sometimes have to start-stop a lot if there is a mini-crisis. But for first narrators, I try to build a little hedge of quiet around a 15 minute period so they can narrate and focus. See if you can find some fresh activities for your 4.5 yo that you save just for narration time, or perhaps an educational video like Leap Frog.
5) In terms of what to expect from the narration, it will be different for every child because each child acts individually on the story they read (or heard), and narrates differently: different styles, different observations, unique emphasis. And....here's the sticking point....your new narrator may not pull out all 15 points from the story that you could, and that's ok! Claire's advice is right on target here: be engaged, a good listener, ask for clarification if needed, but keep it light.
6) Like so many other of CM's methods, this is a slow and steady progression. Enjoy it. Engage your child's narrations. I mean REALLY engage....stop, make eye contact, listen, and bring YOUR full power of attention to a narration. Learn to be a really good listener. Narrations develop over time. They can be shaky at first, but children do begin to develop a habit of narrating. The fruit of nurturing the habit of narration:
My high school daughter and I were talking the other day about learning habits she felt really had become second nature to her, and she said that she felt that if she could "read" something, she'd know it and this was a good habit she thought. I probed a little more and asked her why this was - was it the reading, the visual words on the page, was it only in reading she felt this was possible, did she feel like she just had good recall? She reads some heavy books and is very visual - Churchill, Belloc, Augustine's Confessions - but I wondered if she felt this extended to auditory learning experiences. After thinking about it and talking about it more, she realized it isn't the reading, it is the narrating that is cementing everything. She is internally narrating everything, turning it over in her mind, narrating what she encountered (whether it was read, heard, taught, a skill) and having an internal dialogue with herself about the new thing read, seen, heard.
We talked about it a little more to discuss how these internal narrations flow. She recalls and orders ideas, story and information, sometimes even acting on it as she does in an oral narration, imposing her own thoughts and opinions, allowing herself to question an author's logic, or a skill that was taught, reasoning beyond what was read or learned.
As she and I had a short conversation, she explained that she had simply learned the habit over the years of narrating internally (silent narration) in preparation for narrating aloud to me and this had taught her to organize information in her mind, and cemented learning experiences, whether I asked for a narration or not.
In thinking about it, I realized I have the same habit of silent narration, and I credit learning narration as a habit in youth. My mom required us to narrate experiences and books we read to her. It fostered the habit of narration in me without me even knowing it (Mom would just be earnestly interested and ask us to tell what we read, or tell about what we learned. Nothing formal - a very simple narration, really. And I don't think I realized that it had formed the same habit in me until my daughter and I had our conversation.
This is a fruit of narration - consistently applied and enjoyed across the years - and I thought it might be encouraging to read about the fruits of this extraordinary method, even if you're just at the beginning, nurturing the new habit. Sort of like a pretty garden catalog selling seeds, but always with a pretty picture of the mature, fruiting plant you can look forward to if you're attentive and nurture it through it's seasonal growth.  So.....coming back around to new narrators, my point is simply to encourage you to enjoy beginning narrations as Claire encourages.
Discussions
We have them. They tend to spring naturally from a reading based on an interest that we may share mutually, or that a child has about their reading. I don't force them or structure them in the early years, I simply invite them by staying engaged and attentive and open. (With my middle schoolers and high schoolers, this "discussing" becomes a little more structured and in depth.)
If a child wants to discuss or dig into a topic, he usually does so, and I'm eager to join him. I consider my part to ask questions and invite further investigation. These discussions look like informal Socratic discussions in our home - I observe, listen, may ask a lot of questions, offer my thoughts when asked, and I encourage the children to reason through and logically consider their own opinions.
I do not do this with beginning narrators as much, but I don't shy away from a discussion either. It's not unusual for a 1st grader to have some definite opinions about something read, and they may want to discuss it. (One of my little people had some definite opinions about Make Way for Ducklings. ) If I have to think about it to describe it, I'd say it probably looks a lot like the older children's discussions, I just allow it to reach the depth the child wants to take it to - if that makes sense? I try to keep it light without crossing over into being flippant about their topic. We discuss, I ask questions, they answer, and I just watch for their very natural and clear cues that they're ready to wrap it up...and then I do. I've never tried to really describe, or put a method to our discussions before, so I hope this made some sense. ???
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Maggie
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| Posted: April 21 2012 at 2:42pm | IP Logged
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I'm confused.
What exactly is narration?
Is it a "discussion" about what happened? Favorite parts?
Or is it a re-telling in the child's own words?
What would be a good bench-mark for a beginning narrator?
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 21 2012 at 3:54pm | IP Logged
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Maggie wrote:
I'm confused.
What exactly is narration? |
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A narration is very simply the child telling back what they heard. It is nothing more than that.
Maggie wrote:
| Is it a "discussion" about what happened? |
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A discussion is, by definition, more of a two-way communication between two people. Discussions begin to happen quite naturally in our home when children are older and some of them spring FROM a narration, but narration and discussions are two very different things.
Narration lays the foundation for writing because it fosters the habit of organization of expression. It's a very challenging thing to do, and a very effective tool for eventually building on in learning to write.
Discussion is helpful for older students that are beginning to apply their own logic and reasoning skills to things they've read. They often want to probe or explore areas in more detail, and these often become discussions. I do not ask for discussions from young children.
There isn't really a benchmark for beginning narrations because each child narrates uniquely, and the material they narrate will be unique. For a beginning narrator: If the child told you back what they read, and you understand it, it's good. I do not correct narrations, or require any kind of literary analysis.
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Jen Mackintosh
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keac
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| Posted: April 24 2012 at 12:22pm | IP Logged
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I've found Aesop's Fables to be an excellent tool for learning the art of narration. Just the right amount of information, right length of passage, and yet a complete story so it's very engaging.
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: April 24 2012 at 12:30pm | IP Logged
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I used Aesop with my second grader, and we started out narrating after every line. Even the short fables were difficult at first due to the language, but I love the exposure to rich language.
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: April 24 2012 at 3:33pm | IP Logged
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See... and I tried using Aesop and narrating after one or two lines and all my DS did was repeat back to me, word for word, what we read. The same thing happened when I would read a whole fable. He wanted to repeat it back to me, word for word. I just found it wasn't working for us. Those two threads linked above are about the same son, btw.
I think my son is just too much of a literalist and narration is a very abstract and complex skill. It certainly doesn't seem to come easily to him, but we had a lot more success with the smaller Burgess stories (like The Adventures of Sammy Jay) and a history book because he loves history. We used 50 Famous Stories Retold.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 24 2012 at 3:58pm | IP Logged
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Krista, I wonder if it would help to read some picture books together. on the same story.. but each told it's own way.. so that he can hear/see that you can tell the same story without it having to be verbatim. Seeing that real people who get their stories put into books can tell the story in different ways and have it be the same story might help him relax a bit about it being literally the same story.
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kristinannie
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| Posted: April 25 2012 at 6:34pm | IP Logged
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Krista, I was planning on using the Adventures of books by Burgess for narrating. The chapters are all about 3 pages long and my kids adore these books! I bought Aesops as well as a couple of US history books that you ladies recommended. I am sure I will asking for more advice once we start narrating!
BTW, would it be helpful if I narrated to model it for the kids now?
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: April 25 2012 at 6:50pm | IP Logged
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JodieLyn wrote:
| Krista, I wonder if it would help to read some picture books together. on the same story.. but each told it's own way.. so that he can hear/see that you can tell the same story without it having to be verbatim. Seeing that real people who get their stories put into books can tell the story in different ways and have it be the same story might help him relax a bit about it being literally the same story. |
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Thanks! I think I will try that. I mean, we have read some fables and story tales in different books that weren't the same but maybe he needs me to be a little more pointed about it.
He did do better once we switched books, though.
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Krista
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Narration/discussion question
