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Burgess Animal Book for Children – struggle on narration – help!
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I picked this as a top choice for our science read aloud this term and couldn’t wait to begin last month. We read 2-3 times per week, some days better than others, but in general my kids, DS8, DS7, DS5, just don’t seem to be loving it as much as I’d hoped.
Does anyone else see their kids struggle with narration on this title? I’m trying to be relaxed about it but there is always a little sigh when I put the book down and ask for the narration. I think they enjoy it but are (maybe) overwhelmed at the amount of detail (?) I can almost imagine them thinking, “ooh, where do I start now…”
I’m trying now to keep the read aloud to just a couple of paragraphs before I stop to ask for the narration, but there are some moments (not all), when I see a lack of inspiration, where I wonder whether I should be giving up the title for something else (at least for the time being..?)
Help! How do you know when to give up the book? Is there another option when your child just really struggles to narrate a certain book?
Blessings, and thanks for any help!
Andi
I haven’t read the book but my 9yo ds loves his other books. We are still newbies, compared to some, but I’ll give you some tips: Maybe you could just have them draw a picture or color good quality printables of the actual animals that you’re reading about. Plus, the 5yo shouldn’t be asked for narrations but if he wanted to listen in and color that would be okay. I’ve been asking my 6yo ds for narrations but keep it light and ask for drawings/offer coloring pages/his bro. and him act out a scene to not overwhelm him or make him dread being read to. Have you given them examples of “how” to narrate, like what you’re looking for in a narration??
Narration is challenging but can be incredibly rewarding, so don’t give up. And, some books are just easier to narrate from than others.
Others will chime in with ideas…hth.
The Burgess books do seem to be a bit harder to narrate. There is a lot of information in each chapter. My DD6 enjoys them, but I think it’s because I relax a bit in terms of narration. We do one chapter from the Animal book and one from the Bird Book each week. I don’t think I would do more than that. When AO schedules these books, they only use it once every few weeks. I think 6 birds or animals a term. I think it helps to space it out, so you have time to think about one or two animals from a chapter before learning more details about more animals.
When reading, I stop regularly, not necessarily after a certain number of paragraphs, but more where it makes sense in the story. I ask a fairly open ended question, such as “Tell me something about what this animal looks like.” or “What did you learn about where this animal lives and what he likes to eat?” or “How is this bird different from the one at the beginning of the chapter?” It helps her focus her attention on the details from the story, rather than just ‘tell me everything’. I don’t expect her to narrate the whole story or give me every detail, just enough to give a sense of what the animal or bird is like. Sometimes I do a bit of narrating myself, making a comment or two about the animal or bird, telling something that struck me as interesting or that I didn’t know before. Then it’s more a conversation, with both of us sharing what we noticed.
I did find that it took several chapters before DD seemed to really appreciate the books. We started with Bird Book in the fall, when we could also watch birds outside for a while. Then we switched to Animal Book in the winter. In the spring I suggested switching back to Bird book for a while, since we had many birds at our feeders, but DD insisted we had to do both books now! You can also jump around a bit if you like, picking animals that your children might already be familiar with. We did that with the Bird Book, reading chapters about birds DD had already seen. Then we started back going through from the beginning.
Hope that helps!
Joanne
I always stop after each animal because they frequently have two or more animals in each chapter. I also ask more pointed narrations like tell me about what this animal likes to eat, what’s the most interesting thing about them, or do they have any special abilities or strange habits. I also like to pick up picture books at the library for upcoming animals and leave them laying around for leisure reading.
Tara
A couple of ideas off the top of my head:
You might also try having them do a drawn narration of the chapter as they are listening – I get really detailed narrations sometimes that I wouldn’t have gotten without the drawing to “hang” their ideas to.
Take turns doing narrations with them (you do one, then they do one).
Sometimes just coloring a page seems to give my littles brains and body a chance to relax and listen while still wiggling. I usually google a picture of the animal or bird we are studying in that chapter though.
I also have to say that maybe his other books like The Adventures of Buster Bear, or Blacky the Crow, or Sammy Jay, etc. might be a better place to start since he focuses on that character for longer amounts of time. It would give your kids a chance to make a connection to a particular animal and your narrations could improve with that.
Your kids are also young and are building the skill, so be patient and persistent. =)
Thanks so much ladies! What wonderful ideas. I can certainly give all these different approaches on narration a try as well as the ideas to get other pictures/book on the animal we’re focused on. Sheraz, yes, they are enjoying the Adventures of series much more, I have the older boys reading these as assigned silent reading now and they LOVE them. I had been thinking of just trading the Animal Book for the”Adventures of” books for our read alouds since they are more keen on those, but some of the ideas above make me realize there are other strategies I can try first. Love the idea of showing a picture of the animal we’re reading. And I do stop naturally at the end of each animal so that will work well alongside a picture or pulling it up on Google.
Thanks again ladies, I can’t thank you enough. I feel so much better already!
Blessings, Andi
Here are some links that I just remembered I found, on someone’s blog, I think. I haven’t used them, but now that I remember them, I’ll have to check them out again myself.
http://burgessanimals.shutterfly.com/8
http://www.artprintsforkidz.com/burgess-animal-book-for-children/
http://www.thatresourcesite.com/printables_for_homeschoolers_colouring_burgess.htm
http://teachbesideme.blogspot.ca/p/burgess-animal-book-for-children-guide.html
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