I purchased Aesop’s Fables to use to practice oral narrations with my first grader. I was doing it everyday, then we went down to maybe twice a week. After that I just dropped it. I really do not enjoy them like I thought I would. My son doesn’t seem to really understand the morals anyways. He’s not really catching on to the meaning behind the story. Should I just keep using them or does anyone have any other suggestions we can use for narrating? He is about to turn 7. I’ve tried narrating from our other history and science reading and he can recall a fact or two but those are just too long. I would like something short like Aesop that I can have just for practicing narrating until he develops the skill better. Any suggestions?
The Fables aren’t used for the purpose of the morals, the point of the fables is their short length. I think I read somewhere that those morals were added years later just like the French fairy tale morals were.
Start with a sentence/paragraph at a time and just ask him to tell you what you read. After he responds, read the next sentence/paragraph. Be involved with an interested face. Don’t go all fact hunting on him. 😉 That might make him freeze because he’ll be afraid that he’ll get it wrong. Read one aloud and model the type of narration you want. Do it with him. Let him use animals to act out the story with. Let him draw a picture and tell you about it. You can do this with any lesson.
Remember that although this hard at first, narration is THE underlining method to all CM lessons. It is far better to persevere through them now and master it at this age than try to do it when he is 12.
Could you use the 50 Famous Stories, 50 Famous People or the 30 More Famous Stories series? The stories are longer but have more developed characters and might be more interesting to him.
Thank you! These are all great ideas, I will keep trying with the fables. Using the animals is such a great idea too. I was reading the whole thing expecting a great narration the first time. I wasn’t pressuring but I was feeling like I’m just not doing something right. I think starting with one or two sentences is probably what I need to back up to. I also have the 50 famous stories so maybe I can alternate between the two. Thanks again!