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Written Narrations & Corrections
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My dd11 has been doing 2-3 written narrations per week this year. Her content is very good, spelling and grammar are what I expect for her age and what we’ve covered. I’m curious what you all do re. corrections. I have thus far corrected all of the errors and require correction of those words/ideas we’ve covered.
This next term I plan to have her write 1 history narration, 1 literature narration, 1 Bible narration and 1 Story Starter each week. This gives one day for polishing. Just wondering if we should polish and correct everything or just pick and choose.
Opinions welcome.
Christie
I just read this last night in When Children Love to Learn:
“Keep a record of the written narrations as a way of noting the child’s progress. Written narration is not to be evaluated for spelling and grammar, but for content alone. Special care should be taken that certain spelling and grammar is covered as the need becomes apparent.”
I’m still figuring this out myself, since I also use a CM-friendly writing curriculum and am trying to balance both….hope you get some helpful answers:) Blessings, Gina
Oh, boy. I’ve been doing almost the complete opposite!
I do check for spelling/grammar (so I’ll stop doing that) and discuss some of the content, but what are you suppose to say about the content?? They didn’t use enough adjectives/could’ve explained a scene with more detail/ended abruptly?? I could go on and on, but I think you get what I’m saying.
I believe narration, oral or written, is the most fabulous way for my kids to learn, but *I* would like to do better for them when they do written narration and not just have it sit there.
I guess I could use some help in this area as well, so thanks for posting the question, Christie!
I would take “evaluate for content” to mean that if they get actual facts wrong in what they narrate that you point that out to them so they aren’t learning wrong information.
Nebby
Good question, and I’m following along to see what others do too.
So far I’ve had my dd correct misspellings to help her not have incorrect spellings in front of her as she re-reads her own writing and to help her “see” the correct spelling in her mind as soon as possible. This is possible because her misspellings are usually few in number. If she misspelled a lot of words, I would probably have to rethink what we do so she would not become discouraged or hesitant to write as much as she would like to for fear of having to correct a lot.
Grammar mistakes are even fewer than spelling right now at her level (she is 10), but if it was glaring, I’d have her correct it. If not, I would just make a note of it to talk to her about it/remind her about it before she wrote on a topic where that same mistake might come up again. (I think.)
As a side note, I think this is a helpful article: http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com/2009/07/yes-there-is-time-to-correct-written.html
The whole category of posts is good: http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com/2009/07/narration.html
(Christie, I know you are familiar with Linda’s website….just posting it for others who might not be or for when this topic is searched in the future.
)-Kim
Christie, from what I’ve learned so far in studying narrations, picking just one narration a week is sufficient for your daughter’s age. Choose a different kind every week, and just go over one concept at a time that you feel needs improvement. It sounds like she is doing well!
Thanks for the thoughts, ladies.
I should clarify that she doesn’t make loads of spelling errors, but when she misspells a word we’ve covered, I have her correct it. Same thing with grammar or left out words. I’m trying to hold her responsible for things we’ve covered, but just note those we haven’t. I don’t wish to bleed on her paper with a red pen, but I do want to see steady improvement. Perhaps we will continue on as is, but pick one narration to really polish up, maybe the bible or the history ones each week. The others get quick corrections.
I do think we will drop Story Starters for the term. She enjoys them, but we need to lighten the load a bit.
Kim – don’t you just love lindafay’s site. It’s such an encouragement to me.
Simple home, she began written narration at 9 or 10 and we’ve just moved up to 3x a week this school year. She does well with that amount. My son will probably need only 1-2 a wk at age 11, but time will tell.
Thanks again.
Christie
I should clarify that I meant picking one of her 3 narrations to polish would be sufficient, not that she should only do one written narration a week. I think writing should be included everyday in some form or fashion. 🙂
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