My school aged DC are 13, 10, 8, and 5. We use SCM’s history, so they have about one chapter of independent reading each day for that. We are also using ELTL and that requires about 3 chapters per week. I try to vary the subjects they narrate. I don’t always have them narrate their independent readings, but they usually give me at least a few sentences about their readings. ELTL also has some sort of folk tale for each lesson (so an additional 3 short readings per week). My goal is for them to do one written narration per week, and I plan on varying the subjects for this.
The subject they narrate include science, history, Bible, artist/composer study readings, LDTR for Children readings, literature, and geography. Sometimes I have one child narrate and sometimes they narrate as a group.
For my 8yo, she narrates the family subjects with the rest of them. She doesn’t read on her own much since she’s still working on reading fluency. However, she probably could handle the books on her own. We are reading the history books together…I’ll read for a bit, then let her read a paragraph or so, and alternate through the readings this way. I’ll be reading her ELTL books aloud to her. ELTL 2 has her do oral narrations (which I write down), then she’ll copy them for copywork. I think this will make a nice transition to written narrations! We haven’t yet done any of these, but she is my strongest narrator so it should go well.
My youngest is 5 (will be 6 in October) and doesn’t really do narrations at this point. I’ll probably start with them this year. She is just starting to read aloud simple CVC words.
This year I have scheduled 30 minutes of daily reading time. In that time, my oldest 2 work in independent reading (from SCM history or ELTL literature). If they finish with those, they can read from a library book. My 8 and 5yo spend some time working on phonics with me. So far this is working well.
