Are these early signs of narration?

Hi and wishing you all well,

I don’t think I have fully implemented all of the CM method yet but maybe we are on our way to doing so.  My DDs are in the early years (eldest will be 3 in March and youngest is 14 months) so I have to keep reminding myself not to get too caught up in formal schooling mode (!) and that at this young age it’s all about learning through play etc.  I am also still learning about what it means to be homeschooling CM-style.

I’ve understood abit about narration, and that it is only recommended for 6yo and beyond, if I remember correctly.  I get some moments in the day or evening where I am indirectly observing/listening to my eldest DD.  She is advanced with her speech development and language skills, at home we use 3 languages: English, French and Arabic, so she loves to communicate.  We have been looking at several topics over the last few months and I try to follow her lead/interests most of the time.  Firstly, we went through a phase of learning about honey bees (not a winter topic I know!) but we’d been to a local honey fayre in the summer and a month later she kept mentioning honey and bees so we explored it through some educational videos, songs and a kids’ library book (more factual with images – I wasn’t too savvy about twaddle at the time, but the book did help in some ways).  And we talked alot about honeybees.  She still seems to hold an interest in it although we haven’t been focusing on it as much lately because, secondly, she has been fascinated by the solar system! so again educational videos/songs, a couple of library books (can’t find living books for kids in our local library may have to move up to the adult section!) In less than a week she learnt the names of the planets.  I’m trying not to behave too much like a schoolteacher, we just look at the images and i just repeat or describe certain things to her.

This evening, I left DD to just play about and do her own thing and I was listening to her basically narrate orally as if to her own imaginary audience.  She was saying “bees make honey with nectar” for instance, and I began to wonder whether she was doing a sort of narration, retelling what she knows and has learnt.

Another topic we’ve been doing recently is based on a Qur’anic story.  I like how CM focused on the Bible, so for us I’ve substituted it with our Qur’an study which consists of remembering a short chapter.  This particular chapter we’re focusing on relates the story of the Elephant so I also bought a pop-up book and we’ve been reading that too as well as watching an educational animation video.  This evening, I heard her talking to her “audience” (in her own language, not everything she says yet makes sense) and I picked up two key words which indicated that she understood the story.

On other occasions, I’ve observed her sitting with the Solar System library book (it’s in the Welsh language which we don’t understand) and going through it page by page with my her little sister (who was lapping up all the attention 🙂 ) naming all the planets, the sun and so on, giving her own little lesson to DD2.

From a CM point of view I’m sat here now asking myself whether DD1 is displaying early signs of oral narration?  Have any of you experienced this with your own children?  I don’t ever ask her to do narration of course.

I’m interested in knowing what you think as we are really in the early stages of home education.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts.

X