I’ve been thinking about this post. Maybe it will help if I post my recent experiences. My daughter just turned 6 years old and we have begun narration. We started with Aesops fables since they are short, great stories and really capture kids interest. I read one fable per day aloud to my daughter. I remind her to pay full attention before we start and I only read it once. When I am done reading I ask her to tell me everything she remembers. She tells me what she remembers and I try hard not to prompt or “give hints”, but rather let her make her own connections with the story. After she has told me everything we will occassionally discuss the fable futher if we really liked something about it. Usually, she is able to retell the whole story although not always in correct order or with a lot of detail. Of couse she is only 6, and we started this process about 3 weeks ago so we have plenty of time to practice. She is already improving her ability to put things in the correct order and draw out the “moral of the story”. These are composition skills and inferring from the text- more advanced skills than your typical book report. Over time we will progress to longer passages and she will eventually begin to write her own narrations, but it will happen gradually and without busy work to bog her down.
For older kids you can start the same way- pick simple but engaging 1 paragraph stories and let them tell you “everything they remember”. Older kids will progress more quickly to longer passages and written narrations (around 4th grade). Narrations can also be done with drawing pictures, etc. for variety.
