Dictation & Written Narration

Heather, I suspect that a lot of us have had this problem! Those boys and writing <sigh> LOL

OK. It’s very possible that my particular reluctant writer is not necessarily typical. But I do know that with him (he’s 14 1/2 now, and we’ve been working on this forever!) nothing at all would work until he gained some ability with written narration. I would panic every second year or so, sure I’d ruined him by not doing (or at least not SUCCESSFULLY doing) a writing program, so we’d try a new one—he’d hate it—I’d finally give up and promise to stick with CM methods—another year would go by and I’d STILL be getting four-word written narrations, so I’d panic, pick another program, repeat above . . . LOL

I could give you quite a list of things we’ve tried. 🙂

But we got nowhere until I took the time to really nurture written narration. Now, written narration is going to be much shorter, and it is going to take time to develop–but then, in my experience, things began happening quickly. My son’s ability has really improved over the last two years.

Some things to think about—can he type? My son does MUCH BETTER and much longer narrations when he types them.

Try having him write at first only a PART and then orally narrate a part

Try giving him some direction to begin a written narration with–instead of “Narrate” ask “What happened to “X” in this chapter?” or “What was your favorite part of this chapter” or some other question that gives him a place to begin–my son often “froze” just because he did not know where to start, but if he had a starting place, he could write the rest.

Try initially choosing a book that he really likes to work on the written narrations with–you can extend to his other books later, once you’ve broken the ice. The ice broke for me when I gave my son Fabre’s Storybook of Science, and a boy who would give me two sentence fragments of 9 total words in a written narration on his literature book, would suddenly give me two PAGES of narration on the habits of ants (Really–I still have that ant narration, it was the longest thing he’d ever written at that point!) Choose something he really enjoys.

Also, when we began written narration, I would allow my son to use “notes” of a sort to help him–he could write down a name, or a place, or a couple of words to help him remember something and to help him spell something so he didn’t keep writing “This guy did this” because he couldn’t remember how to spell the name.

I myself would hold off on a program until you get over this “narration hump” When he can do a couple written narrations a week of at least a paragraph or two, then is a good time to decide if you would like to add to his “skill set” and then you, too, can have sons who email you long essays on why they ought to have a cell phone. 🙂

I’ll try and see if any other tidbits surface, but these were all things we tried and found effective with Pencil-Allergic Boy. 🙂 (Odd, my third son writes BOOKS–on his OWN–at age 8. I wonder sometimes if they are really related, lol)

Try not to worry about the age, but just concentrate on helping him do THIS one thing. My son was 12 before we really felt he had written narrations down. He chose a program to try this past year himself, then, and has really thrived on it. (If you are curious, it is Apologia’s Jump In, and he loves it) But he wouldn’t have been successful with it, I don’t think, until he got the narration thing down.

One of these days I’m going to write a book on trying to persuade boys to write. Not on how TO do it, but on how NOT to do it, because I’ve covered that area so much better. 🙂 The kids tease me about needing therapy in future years to recover from the Duckling Story Incident and other writing missteps. 🙂

Michelle D

Michelle,

He is 13 and has had very little grammar instruction. I am wanting to get AG for him this year. I do not have enough grammar knowledge to be able to walk him through all the things he needs to make his narrations better. I loathed grammar as a child even though now I actually enjoy it and look forward to learning more about it and how it all comes together.

Thank for the help.

Hey ladies,

Thanks for this discussion. My 10yr old ds hated to write until this year. I would ask him to write a narration of the story or just something that interested him in the story and he had no idea where to start…kind of like Michelle said above. However, when I watched the Institute for Excellence in Writing videos my whole world started to make more sense. He [the guy who teaches us how to teach our kiddos] actually does a whole lot of talking about why boys hate writing and how to help them. My favorite part is that my ds reads a paragraph and has to take “notes” or three words from each sentence. Then, he stands up in front of me or the whole family and gives a “speech” or a narration of each sentence in the paragraph, reframing it in his own words. Then I have him sit down and write the sentences he just stated. He loves this because now he knows exactly what he wants to write and where to start. I don’t know if anyone else out there has had success with this method, but it has been a fabulous experience for us. And the best part… he’s writing things that astound me, instead of three word sentences. And he doesn’t get upset about writing anymore.

Jen

LOL, you can confuse me with Cindy any time you like, she is terrific company to get “mixed up with” 🙂 My next-youngest sister’s name is Cindy, and my mom mixed the two of us up a lot, so I’ve been called “Cindy” before, even! LOL

No, I’ve never tried IEW itself. I looked into it several times but couldn’t shake a feeling that it was really a curriculum to train one to write exactly like Andrew Pudewa, and he seems like a nice enough guy, but something in me rebelled at the formulaic-type tone of it. Also the expense was a deterrent for me. I know a lot of people who are very, very happy with it, however. And I have a good friend encouraging me to try the “Teaching the Classics” seminars at IEW. But I never did dive in and try it. Sorry!

Michelle D