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Narration and Only say it once help
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I have the All Day Charlotte Mason Seminar DVD’s and have watched half of it so far. So, I apologize if this is answered in the last half.
I have been struggling with this all year. I understand and like the concept of only reading or saying something one time. Once is enough if you are paying attention. But what do you do when you finish and ask them “Tell me about what we just read” or “Tell me what happened to Balam today” and they say “I don’t know”
Then what? We can’t just skip that part of school and so oh well they won’t know about Balam in the Bible ’cause they didn’t get it the first time.
My DD is 7. I realize she is still learning some of these things but I don’t know what to do except read it again. And that totally goes against the only do it once policy.
Actually, that is almost exactly what I do. (and for the Bible, it isn’t like it isn’t going to be read again in a few years…) But yes, at times, I just say “oh, that is a shame”…
Sometimes I’ll “prime the pump” – so using a really simple example of “The 3 little pigs…” – I might say something like “So there were 3 little pigs, and they…….” or for my son, sometimes being a little silly gets him going to correct me… “so there were 3 little chickens…” (and he would then say “no they were pigs!”, to which I’d say something like “really? wow, I missed that… what did they do?” or another silly starting might be “you don’t know? I thought the part about the purple dragon was exciting, what about you?” – to which they will say “There wasn’t a purple dragon!”
Or having them act it out, or draw a picture might “prime the pump”….
It can come down to why they are saying “I don’t know”…. There are 3 reasons I can think of offhand…..
1. They have a really hard time narrating. My son is like this. I need to cut how much I read way down, use alternate methods of narrating at times, “prime the pump”, and just work on his abilities to express himself
2. The just lost attention. For that, I lean towards the “I’m sorry you missed that, as it was enjoyable” response recommended by CM… switching to a different type of work for now – and possibly some other action if I feel it is needed.
3. The “I can’t be bothered” or Lazy response. (not just a simple loss of attention, but a not wanting to put forth the effort to either attend or narrate. For that one, I have heard of people that have read the story over and over until they narrate it, maybe cutting it to one sentence at a time… BUT you don’t want to do that at all regularily… and it isn’t something I’ve tried. The response I would be more likely to use is the “you have wasted my time, so you can make it up to me by doing some work (chore) response”.
Of course, the hard part is determining which reason is the reason, as the different responses won’t work for the different reasons.
Does she usually narrate well, or is she having difficulty learning how to narrate?
hope that helps a bit!
Simular or not but what about when it’s quarter/term time and they really can’t give it back to you? Do you also just say “oh-well”. Sometimes I feel like I read history to just hear myself talk?
She is having some difficulty narrating. She definately tries to tell me verbatim what I said, so it is usually just the last sentence. Then I tell her “Good. But what happened before that?” If I ask questions out of the reading, she can usually answer them. Except when it is completely “I don’t know.”
I usually only read a couple sentences or paragraph if it is short and have her narrate as we go. Most of our narrating is done with our Bible readings and the history readings. We are doing SCM module 1 and I don’t have her narrate Letters from Egypt. We do talk about it when we are done and review it a bit before we start it the next time. Like today before we started I asked her “When Ms. Whately started her schools in Egypt did she have and easy time? Did lots of kids come?”
And, yes Iamasahm, I wonder too. What about when they can’t tell it back to you at the end of the term? It is a real frustration to work with them on something and then be told “I don’t know.”
Sonya talks about this in the Books and Things Seminar. Three things can be done. As suzukimom mentioned you could use some prompts to get the narration started. If you think it is more of a listening issue, put the book aside and do it again after the rest of your schoolwork is done and it should now be free time for her (natural consequence). Or use smaller sections for her to narate back. Start small and then work up to larger sections. HTH.
My 7 yr. old is a strong reader so if I feel it was simply her not paying attention ( she is a day dreamer); I will actually have her read it again to herself. I have only had to do this a few times, because she really doesn’t want to read it again.
Something that has been really helpful is to have her read along with me. If she is looking at the words she remembers them better. She is my visual learner. My oldest is auditory so tracking along with me does not work with her. Maybe if you try integrating her learning style it will help .
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