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I've been leaving out an important part of narration….
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I have always thought narration was just telling back the story in as much detail as you can remember, never including your own opinions and ideas. I have never encouraged this in my children’s narrations (for two years now), so how can I transition and also, how can this look in a narration? I do want to say, though, that we have many of these kinds of discussions on our own and informally, just not as a part of formal narration. It must seem pretty silly for me not to request my children to do this when this is what CM was all about – forming your own relationship and ideas based on what you read. Looking forward to some of your thoughts on this.
I was watching this thread myself to see what others said. But, for what it’s worth, I always thought narration was only the telling of the details. I understood that the relationship building went on naturally within each child. And I’ve seen that come in to play actually. Quite frequently, they will make & verbalize those connections just as off-hand comments. I’m always amazed at their young wisdom (and Charlotte Mason’s). As hard as it is, I try not to prompt or direct them if I can restrain myself (it’s h-a-r-d). Ms. Mason said to step back and let the author’s do the talking. The children will pick out, digest and distribute the information in their own ways. And those ways are more lasting, because the effort and interest came from themselves.
The longer I teach this way, the more I realize how simple it actually is and yet how powerfully effective.
I am looking forward to hearing others thoughts…Tonni
So, are there others that are having their children add in their own thoughts and ideas taken from the text or are most doing it pretty much the same way I am? ……
Narration is simply retelling. It does not include opinions and such. However, interacting with the text by evaluating, connecting to your own experiences, comparing to other things you’ve read, etc ARE very wonderful thinking (or writing) activities. So while I wouldn’t call them narration, I do encourage them apart from the narration.
In fact, I’ve started using reading journals with my daughter purely to encourage more of that type of interaction with the text.
Here are a couple of quotes that may add to this discussion.
“Indeed, it is most interesting to hear children of seven or eight go through a long story without missing a detail, putting every event in its right order. These narrations are never a slavish reproduction of the original. A child’s individuality plays about what he enjoys, and the story comes from his lips, not precisely as the author tells it, but with a certain spirit and colouring which express the narrator. By the way, it is very important that children should be allowed to narrate in their own way, and should not be pulled up or helped with words and expressions from the text.
“A narration should be original as it comes from the child––that is, his own mind should have acted upon the matter it has received.
“Narrations which are mere feats of memory are quite valueless (Vol 1, p. 289).
“This, of getting ideas out of them, is by no means all we must do with books. ‘In all labour there is profit,’ at any rate in some labour; and the labour of thought is what his book must induce in the child. He must generalise, classify, infer, judge, visualise, discriminate, labour in one way or another, with that capable mind of his, until the substance of his book is assimilated or rejected, according as he shall determine; for the determination rests with him and not with his teacher” (Vol. 3, p. 179).
“There is much difference between intelligent reading, which the pupil should do in silence, and a mere parrot-like cramming up of contents; and it is not a bad test of education to be able to give the points of a description, the sequence of a series of incidents, the links in a chain of argument, correctly, after a single careful reading. This is a power which a barrister, a publisher, a scholar, labours to acquire; and it is a power which children can acquire with great ease, and once acquired, the gulf is bridged which divides the reading from the non-reading community.
“But this is only one way to use books: others are to enumerate the statements in a given paragraph or chapter; to analyse a chapter, to divide it into paragraphs under proper headings, to tabulate and classify series; to trace cause to consequence and consequence to cause; to discern character and perceive how character and circumstance interact; to get lessons of life and conduct, or the living knowledge which makes for science, out of books; all this is possible for school boys and girls, and until they have begun to use books for themselves in such ways, they can hardly be said to have begun their education” (Vol. 3, p. 180).
Thank you for the quotes, Sonya. So, from a narration, how can I tell if my child has “acted upon the material” him or herself? I do know that my dd, 8, has very lively narrations, because they are infused with her personality (sometimes, I have to keep from laughing – they are very animated and cute). I’m not sure if that means she’s “acted upon the material herself” or not. My son’s narrations (he’s 11, almost 12) are much more accurate narrations – his memory is amazing down to exact words and phrases – but now I’m wondering if they fit into the category of being “mere feats of memory”and “quite valueless”. Well, as I type this, I do know that he IS a thinker and asks questions afterwards or later will bring a relation up that has occurred to him after his reading, so I guess that is how I know?! The 8 yr old, on the other hand, doesn’t do that as much, but I’m assuming that could be due to her age….
Thanks for helping me figure all of this out.
You’re right. From your descriptions, it sounds like both children are “acting upon the material” in their own ways, which is the beauty of CM methods. Merely parroting back the passage would be not acting upon the material. But Charlotte also talked about children who could narrate and include almost exact phrasing as doing a good job. So I would say your son is doing well to include some of the exact words and phrases, but not simply repeat only those phrases. And his asking questions or making comments afterwards is a huge key to knowing that he is acting upon the material for himself.
Each child will narrate differently because each child is an individual. Your daughter is still in the beginning stages of learning the art of narration, and it’s great that she’s incorporating her personality into hers. It sounds like they’re both doing a great job.
Bump
This was a good discussion of WHAT narration is in a CM education. I thought it might help someone!
I, too would like some thoughts on narration. Our son is in 5th grade this year and this is our first CM year, so I know this is a new way of doing things for him. I knew the narration would be difficult for him. I am wondering how important it is to tell thing in order? And how to encourage that without always being negative about what he has said that wasn’t in any sort of order. I feel like it should be narrated starting from the beginning event and so on. We are diong short passages, started with a paragraph at a time and I am now trying to do a short page or 2 at a time and not meeting with too great of success. I feel like I am discouraging him by always telling him it needs to be told in order. I was thinking of having him write down some of the main words as he listens to help him remember. Is this a good idea? I could really use some insight as I don’t want him to HATE narration. Thanks
Stephanie, sorry I didn’t get back on … I’m terrible about posting and reading then disappearing!
Others might pipe in with better advice, but here is mine:
If he is new to narration, then let him get the feel for it first. It is a skill that takes time to build. It sounds very simple. Just tell what you read or what was read to you. It’s not that easy. It involves many steps in the brain. And it’s a skill that grows with time. Be positive and helpful even right now … it sounds like you’ve just started so don’t worry about “doing it pefectly” just try to get the juices flowing. Have him read to you and you narrate a passage. That gives him an example of how to do it.
I have to say something else too – and I think this is where the information on SCM and with CM in general is a bit mixed – What constitutes a “good” narration? I think this is hard to say sometimes. It depends so much on the material, the child, the circumstnaces, the effort and mood, etc. etc.
For example, I think it is easy to pick up on when my son has not listened well to the reading. I can just tell as his mom, because I know him, and by what he’s saying. Now, there are times when one or two parts of a reading really excite him and he may spend far more time and detail in telling those parts while skipping something else. In other words he doesn’t give me every single thing that happened in the reading. I don’t count this as a “bad” narration. As long as he was accurate, articulate, organized and detailed in his narration of those parts.
Here is a confession too! I don’t read everything that my children read anymore. I did for the first few years. Now, I can tell when there are gaps, missed details, etc. for the most part and can sort of say “Hmm, (pause) …” and that will usually be enough to prompt them to say something like “ok, let me think and get my thoughts organized a minute. ok, now I have it better, sorry” … I don’t know if this not reading by the parent is a good or a bad thing. If I’m puzzled by something I will and do look up the notes on the story. And from time to time I do check it out or read a chapter myself.
As far as writing while he reads, mine will not do this! They are very consumed readers and can’t switch gears to jot notes when they’re reading. I know later they may need this skill for college classes, but maybe narration will train them to read and then make notes? Not sure.
Start small. Go smaller. If he can’t tell what he read for 5 sentences then go smaller. You can build easily and quickly. Starting small lets him gain confidence, style, build the brain skills needed to do narration properly. That would be my advice.
Use the search tool for lots and lots of posts on narrations. It’s a big question and a big part of CM! I hope this helped a little.
Welcome!
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