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Just starting my first grader and have a few questions about methods
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I’m excited! We are about to finish our second week of first grade using CM methods. We’ve really enjoyed our days and our materials (much of which is SCM material). Since we’re brand new to this, I have a few questions. I’m only having my six year old boy write about a line of copywork. Some days we have skipped it all together if he has done some writing in his nature notebook, etc. It probably takes him about five minutes to do his copywork and we’re working on his doing it to the best of his ability. I’m glad to see that he is really focusing on it and trying to do it as neatly as he can. When do I know when to add more to what he is copying? I don’t want to overwhelm him or frustrate him. And I’m pretty sure that handwriting too much could send him over the edge!
Next question: narration. We’re easing into this slowly. I’m asking him to narrate our history (right now it’s usually a chapter from Genesis since we’re using the Module 1 guide from SCM). This is what I might get. “Well, I remember that God made everything. He made everything in the whole world. All the animals, and he made Adam and Eve, too.”
Um…I’m not really satisfied with that. Should I be? How do I help him improve his narration skills?
Here’s another example: we were reading about apples using the guide for Outdoor Secrets from SCM. We read How Do Apples Grow. When I asked for a narration (“tell me everything you can about how apples grow”), he said…”Well, those things called–what are they called again? Oh, OK, yes, when the apple starts to grow, the sepals dry up and then they are those little things at the bottom of the apple. And when you cut an apple open, you can see the shape of a blossom inside. That’s what helped to make the apple grow.”
And that’s it. Am I expecting too much since he’s only six?
When he’s narrating of his own accord (telling his daddy about our story The Apple and the Arrow), he goes into much greater detail. He still leaves out a bunch of stuff, but the things he does mention are pretty detailed.
Sounds like he is doing pretty good to me – but my son had a horrible time narrating. When we started the narrations I got were “I don’t remember!” or “I don’t know”. For the longest time, if I got anything more than the last idea in the story we were doing great.
ie, for “The Tortoise and the Hare” I would get something like “a turtle won a race”.
You can ask if there is anything else… Also when he spontaneously narrates (ie to his dad) you can compliment how well he did.
Also for some kids – how you ask for the narration can make a difference in what you get – I know of people that said that asking “tell me back the story” or “what happened” causes anxiety and very small narrations – but asking “tell me ‘about’ the story” made good narrations. Of course, the wording that works probably varies for each chile…
When he doesn’t have to concentrate so hard on one line, you can add a little more. If it’s still taking “high effort” to get one line done neatly, then stick with that for now, especially since it’s a boy–those fine motor skills can take a little longer.
Narrations–for two weeks in you are doing FINE. Keep it up. Occasionally “model” a narration, showing a bit more of what you want-this can just be “Mommy taking a narration turn today”. Don’t make it a “Mommy is going to tell you exactly how to do it so copy me” thing. Just model what you would like to see him add in. Remember, though, that narration is a VERY personal thing and what each child takes in and then verbalizes will be different. If you ask 10 kids for a narration on a chapter, you SHOULD get 10 different things. Also, telling Daddy about the story COUNTS. You might occasionally say “What are you going to tell Daddy about this story?” and see what he does. If you have younger children too, sometimes ask him to tell THEM what he learned today and see what he says.
You are doing great! This is only two weeks in–just imagine the growth you are going to see this year. Your little guy is going to put those apple “things” to shame!
One tip for narration – write on a white board or piece of paper the names of people/places/things from your reading as you come to them. Then if he can’t remember the name of a person/etc it’s there to see. If he doesn’t read yet then you can double check who he meant when he’s finished the narration, or use the names in your invitation to narrate. For example:
“Oh, you’re right, Abraham did do______ and his wife Sariah did _____.”
“What was your favorite part of the story about Abraham and Sariah?” or “Tell me all you can remember about Abraham’s adventure in Egypt with the Pharoah”
I know my children need help with the names in a story, especially if there were several.
Good thoughts! After I typed this, we sat down and did some history. We read the first section of Oxford First Ancient History and I asked for a narration. “NOOO! I HATE this! I don’t like to do this! It’s too hard!” (For clarification, that was the six year old–not me.)
Like I said, we’re only TWO WEEKS IN. I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot with narration, but it seems perhaps I have. My little guy is very stubborn–if he gets it into his head that he “hates” narrating, it’s going to be very, very difficult for me to undo. Help!
We use a narration cube that someone suggested on another thread. It makes if fun for my 6 yr old dd to narrate with her older sister.
Here is a blank cube: http://daretodifferentiate.wikispaces.com/file/view/blank-cube-template.pdf
I don’t remember where I found our narration starters, but this is a list of questions we use:
Tell me the story back in your words.
Tell me what happened in order.
Tell me all you remember.
Tell me what you understood.
Tell me 4/5 things you learned from this page/chapter.
What do you think about ______?
Why did ______?
Describe ______(person).
HTH!
Tara
If he is hating “narration” already, I would take a break from it for about a week and then come back with it by a different name. At that age, I ask more questions for them to answer and I do the “Tell daddy what we learned about Egypt today when you colored this page!”. It is more of a conversation. I have also used audiobooks and left the room for chores, etc. When I come back, I pause the audiobook and say, “Oh, that sounded exciting. What did I miss?” I have never called it narration for my 7yo. We just talk about it after the reading.
I love the idea of a notebook or whiteboard for notes to help them. As an adult, I keep a notebook if I really want to learn something. But I don’t use if for entertaining reads.
Oh, easybrizy, I totally understand!!! My 6 1/2 y/o DD can tell you back a story that is interesting to her, but when it comes to history she struggles. Instead of reading an entire chapter I am reading a paragraph and having her narrate back. I have gotten a lot of “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” too, and that is frustrating to me b/c I feel like she is not truly listening and I’ve wasted my time. I’m sure some of my questions to her have not been CM friendly b/c I’m trying to get her to recall important things that happened in the story. For example, she told me a series of events but left one part out, so I asked her what happened in between.
The first Oxford reading DD was moving all over the place, and you could tell she was bored with it. I am eager to do some hands on things to help her experience it so she can understand it better and make a connection with what she is learning. It is good to hear that we are not the only ones struggling with narration.
LOL..I remember posting about my struggles with narration last year at this time….AHHHH…memories 😀 Last fall I had a just-turned 6 yr old, a 7 yr old, and a 9 yr old. My youngest “hates” narrating. When ever Im about to read ANYTHING to them, she pipes up “Do I HAVE TO narrate?” My 9 yr old was a natural. We’ve dealt with the “I don’t know”s and the “I cant remember”s, and still have them some days.
The one thing I have done, and it has made a difference, is this: when the kids narrate during class well or I hear them relating something they did, read, or learned to someone (even if its not to me and its not class time), I complement them on their “Narrating”. I say, “Oh, thats wonderful narrating, I really enjoyed hearing your story. Next time we do class, I would love to hear you narrate just like that”. It works EXTREMELY well with my middle child and pretty well with my youngest. Usually the next time they narrate, they ask me if they did really good LOL. I think when I compliment them outside of class, they realize its something they do naturally with out prodding…like “oh its not this big huge scary thing”, and it kind of illistrates to them what Im asking of them.
I had forgotten about the narration cube idea! I think he would actually love that! Oh, and I have never called it narration. When I say that I ask for a narration, I am actually saying, “Can you tell me what you remember about what we read?” I’ve explained to him that when we are able to “tell back” something it’s like taking a picture for our brain forever–so that we will always remember what he read about. He likes that idea.
I also really like the idea of complimenting him outside of school time when I catch him narrating!
Ahhh what a blessing to read these post today! I wanted to pull out my hair and start crying because my daughter has such a hard time with narration! We started school a little more then 2 weeks ago and so everything is still new to both of us. For example, today I read yellow and pink with her and I was so excited about the book. I think it is such a great educational but easy to follow story AND a picture book. At the end I asked her to tell me the story back and she was ” a man who needs a hair cut came and picked yellow and pink up ” That was the last page of the book but she couldn’t remember anything else even when I tried promting her.
We did something else and later I tried reading “the tower of Babel” from a Children’s Story. Before we even started she told me “well I know the story , people built a tower up to heaven and God didn’t like it”. I told her to listen to the strory she may hear something new about it and this time I tried prompting narration after every paragraph. But she just kept repeating what she told me before and obviously she hasn’t listened at all!Oh and in the last few days every time we read something she asked me , “do I have to answer questions again?”.What I got from here was, maybe I should slow down with narration, have her not narrate everything I read. So is it okay to have her narrate one book a day or even a week till she gets the concept? I will also incorporate the cube, seems it makes it more exciting and giving her a feeling of participating choosing what and how to narrate.
Thank you all – like so often you help me keep my sanity!
Blessings Christine
I want you to imagine something for me. I want you to imagine that you find a lovely garden full of flowers and you dance through them with the butterflies, enjoying them and this just makes you happy. You do this time after time. One day you come and the gardeners let you dance, but then they suddenly expect you to pick up gardening tools, weed, mulch, transplant and plow, and it’s hot and sticky and you hate it and you are tired. You keep trying to come to the garden, but they keep making you do all this work! Pretty soon you start to wonder if you really WANT to go to the garden anymore. Nobody explains to you that without work, there will soon BE no garden. You don’t see any point to the work at all. You have no conception of how the work is related to the finished product, the beautiful garden.
This is what a six year old suddenly asked to narrate experiences. Of COURSE they don’t want to narrate. Do you know how HARD narration is? If you haven’t done this yet, you MUST TRY IT.
Some children just aren’t ready. Some children will never learn to LOVE narrating. Some just need to see a glimpse of the big picture and discover why this hard work is necessary. I always tried to find a way to explain it to my kids so they’d see I wasn’t just being a meanie–there was a point to the exercise, and that point was to make their minds capable of learning and understanding more and more lovely books.
If you haven’t yet tried some of Charlotte’s methods like taking a mental picture and describing it in words, or doing a picture study, do try that. Then explain to your child you want them to do the same thing to the story of the book. You don’t have to explain EVERYTHING, just the best things or your favorite things or the things you remember best. But you do have to try your best. Doing this mental exercise often did end up helping my narrators.
Aesop’s Fables and other very short stories like that can also help. I have a sneaking suspicion that Aesop was impressed to write these for a purpose he did not understand—narration! LOL Also, try jokes. Yes, really. Try telling jokes and challenge your child to retell the joke. It doesn’t have to be exact, but it does have to try to get the sense across so it is still funny.
Another thing that helped us is “delayed narration” –this can sometimes help. Try to have the child “remember” or “take a mind picture” but don’t ask for it right then. Instead, ask him to give it to Daddy, or teddy bear, or little sister, LATER when the pressure is off. Try to listen in.
This WILL get better. I can’t promise it’ll get easy and everyone will love doing it, though.
I suppose another form of delayed narration that would work would be at the start of the next lesson to as them to remind you what you read about last time. Maybe then ask what they think will happen next.
Thank you for the eye opener Bookworm:) And I admit I realized my expectations were just too high. Today I wasn’t so stressed out about narration and we had a much much better day:). I just had her draw a picture of todays bible story and since she wanted me to read “Yellow & Pink” again I had her make a “Yellow” and “Pink” out of playdough;)
My oldest dd doesn’t like to narrate either and I really think that comes from a fear of getting something “wrong.” Because it is so open ended, she’s not positive what’s expected of her and she is afraid of failing. (She is a perfectionist.) So, I just encourage her and tell her there is no wrong answer, I just want to hear what she knows. She is doing much better…it really just takes practice. I would be very encouraging…if he gives a very short narration, say, “That’s great! See, it’s not so bad.” As he practices, he will gain confidence.
Something else she has liked is my typing out her narration. If she is narrating something longer, I will type out on the computer what she says while she watches. She likes to have a printed page of what she has said to put in her history notebook. But she is in 2nd grade, so she’s older than your ds…
Just a couple of thoughts I had! 🙂
We did something else and later I tried reading “the tower of Babel” from a Children’s Story. Before we even started she told me “well I know the story , people built a tower up to heaven and God didn’t like it”. I told her to listen to the strory she may hear something new about it and this time I tried prompting narration after every paragraph. But she just kept repeating what she told me before and obviously she hasn’t listened at all!Oh and in the last few days every time we read something she asked me , “do I have to answer questions again?”.
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