Question about written narrations

I’ll throw in my two cents. First of all, it sounds as if what you have assigned her is too easy. By that I mean she has a whole week to read a chapter that is not too long and then has a written narration due, but she seems to be procrastinating the reading until the end of the week. That tells me she doesn’t need the whole week to read the chapter. Maybe you could assign several chapters to read for each week with a narration on each chapter due the day that chapter is read.

I’m not familiar with the book you are using for science. I do know that science books tend to be very fact oriented. It’s just the nature of learning the nitty gritty of how things work in science. Keep that in mind when she turns in narrations. Maybe she is trying but there really isn’t anything to relate but dry facts, even though the book may be very readable. Have you tried reading a chapter or two and seeing what there is to narrate? Is there more there than just the facts?

You say that she does well with oral narrations but you have slacked off on them. Maybe you could require some of her science narrations to be done orally. Or have her do them all orally until she gets the hang of it again, then help her to transition her oral narrations into written ones. You could also narrow the narration topic down from “what was this chapter about” to “what did the author relate about (whatever topic)”. Here’s an example: Let’s say the chapter she read was about different types of clouds. Instead of asking what did you learn in this chapter (very broad), you could ask her to describe the different clouds and tell what kind of weather is associated with each kind (still broad but narrowed down and gives her a starting point).

I’m not sure that answers your questions. Maybe someone else has some insights that may be more helpful.

I’m so glad that my comments were helpful.

Usually the types of books that lend themselves better to any narrations are those that tell a story. Some examples would be biographies and historical fiction. Non-fiction books are good, too, if they are more than just a listing of names and dates. I have mostly boys so we love to read books on the battles from different wars. Nothing too gory, but the books describe the maneuvers by the armies and what the outcome of the battles were. For science I would look for biographies or non-fiction books that relate the author’s experiences. For instance, Jean Craighead George has a few books that tell her experiences with various animals that lived at her house, including a tarantula and a crow.

As for names and dates . . . we try to remember the important names such as George Washington, but we don’t sweat too much over not remembering some more obscure people. I also don’t put too much emphasis on exact dates. I want my kids to be able to attach names with events in history and to know the time period those events took place. For example, I don’t particularly care about the exact date that penicillin was first used, but I do care that my kids understand that it was first used in the 1940s, around the time of World War II. Others may want their kids to remember more details. It all depends on what is important to you.

We, also, usually keep a timeline (some keep a Book of Centuries) that lists all the important dates and names we find interesting. We refer to the timeline as we are reading to find out what else was happening on that date. It is fascinating to see that Benedict Arnold was discovered as a traitor the same year that Haydn published his Toy Symphony, for example.

I hope that helps.

IMO, quality narration will only come with high quality books! 🙂

I just posted example written narrations on my blog from 3 of my children, 2 of them read from very literary books, other 3rd child’s book was a good book, however, it was not from *the best* of books (as CM recommends) and you can tell.

http://livingundergrace.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/written-narrations/

Another thing you may try is doing your own written narration and let her see that, it may give her a better picture of what your looking for?