Narration Troubles

    My almost 14 yr old dd is having serious trouble narrating from both books that are read aloud and that she reads herself.  If it’s a fiction style book (right now she is reading Augustus Caesar’s World), she gets some of the characters and events correct, but she’s often confused about who did what, what order the events happened in, important details that change the story if missed.  Today we were reading from Luke 12.  In my Bible, the chapters are divided into topics and given a summary statement at the top.  Often when doing narration, I’ll stop at the end of one of those sections and have my 3 dd narrate, so that they are not overwhelmed by having to remember the whole chapter to narrate at once.  We read just a few verses at the beginning of Luke 12 (Jesus warns against the leaven of Pharisees) and I asked my 14 yr old “Tell about the warning Jesus gave to His disciples.”  She could not do it.  I gave the standard lecture- You have to focus, you have to pay attention, etc.  We read it again and again I asked her the same question.  Again, she could not answer. It seems to be fairly common that either she has no idea what we read or she’s confused about the information.  I do not know what is going on.  She is not rebellious, so I don’t think she’s just refusing to narrate. She seems genuinely concerned that she can’t remember what she read.  To make matters worse, her two younger sisters are able to narrate well and tell almost too many details sometimes.  This just makes her feel like she’s stupid. 

    We have been consistently narrating for 2-3 years (before that we just kind of dabbled with it) and she has done okay.  She’ll be starting high school next year and she’ll be required to assimilate more and more information, so I’m worried about this lack of comprehending the materials.

Sorry this is so long.  Has anyone else had this problem- a child who narrated fine one year and the next year can’t?  I’ve thought about letting her take notes while I read or she reads, as kind of a “hook to hang” her narration on.  Is that a good idea?

Thanks for any input,

Kim