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Group narrations & Written Narrations
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We just in the last few weeks started really implementing Charlotte Mason principles into our home school, and have been so blessed in all that we’ve been doing, and my children are thriving as well. I have a 12, 10, 7, and 4 year old, and a baby due in May. We are currently using the Module 1 in History along with 106 days of Creation for science. I add in other books that I want my children to read on their own that I think will fit in well with our studies as well. So in any given day, my older 3 will do a group reading for history, science, poetry, and literature, a personal reading for those subjects, though not every single day, plus weekly group readings on artist and composers. My questions are these:
-What is the easiest way to do narrations from group readings? I’ve found that my oldest is discouraged when I start with the youngest and feels he can’t share anything new and doesn’t feel it’s neccessary to just repeat what’s been said in his own words. He does very well in his personal narrations though, so I know it’s not that he can’t do them. Should I pull each child aside indiviually and hear their narrations seperately or just keep trying what we’ve been doing, and encouraging him to add more detail?
-Also, do narrations need to be done immediately after each reading? Or can I have a set aside time each day to hear all of their narrations? I know my youngest may struggle with that, so I would probably have to keep hers immediately after, but what about the older ones?
-Written narrations-For someone just starting out with CM and narrations, should I just start off with asking them to do one a week (for my older two), and build from there? And how long of narrations should I be expecting of them to start with?
Thank you for your time,
Sara
Great questions Sara! You’ll find answers vary. Here is what I think I would do:
Written narrations – yes, once a week to begin! You’re most likely going to see that their oral narrations are longer than written ones at first and that is okay. Just keep plugging along at 1 a week for a long time ( I would say up to a year even for the 12 year old!) and keep up lots of oral narrations. Then slowly have them increase written narrations to 2 per week, etc.
Group narrations – we take turns being the first to start. But your idea of doing them separately would work too if you go ahead and let the younger one go first since she needs to do it right off. Another idea to do it right then is finish a reading and send each child to a separate room to wait. You go to each of them for the narration. The only thing this does is make sure they’re not sitting listening to the others narrate They could take individual work or a book to read with them, but really this shouldn’t take too long so they could just sit and think about what was read while waiting for their turn.
I don’t think narrations must be done right away, for example my children often narrate naturally to daddy when he gets home. So I think a mix of right away and later that day can work, more as they get older than in the earliest (age 6).
I think starting at one written one a week is good. You can always up it if it is going well. My 12 and 11yos do 2 a week at this point. I do not say how long their narrations have to be. They just go till they are done. My 12yos are often one page or a little less typed. My 11yo writes hers out and sometimes goes on for a few pages.
I would not delay narrations too much, especially if they have more than one to do. I don’t think a little delay is bad but I think it is a different thing to have to remember it hours later.
My kids are 12,11,9 and 7. When we do narration together, I try to alternate which one goes first. I sometimes ask others to fill in if they think the first one missed things but not always.
Nebby
Okay, so I realize that many people will think this isn’t enough narrating, but we assign days for narration and take turns. So each child has one day for narrating our history assignment and one day for narrating our science reading. I often switch the days up so that they are in the habit of paying attention in case they are asked to narrate.
Our older two do written narrations once a week on their independent history assignments. Hope that helps!
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