Five Things to Do Before Your Child Narrates
Narrating is a Charlotte Mason-inspired skill that is new to many homeschool children or parents. Put simply, children narrate by telling back in their own words what they have just read or heard. Charlotte Mason-style narration encourages children to share their own version of the passage with accuracy, personality, and originality. Narrating is a skill that takes years and years of practice to hone and develop to its fullest potential. In Heart of Dakota (HOD), modeled oral narrations begin in Little Hearts for His Glory. Independent oral narrations begin in Bigger Hearts and continue through US History II in high school. Narration is something you probably did not grow up doing yourself. Did you know you can set your children up for success even before they begin narrating? Well, you can, and here are five easy things you can do today!
Setting Children Up for Success Before They Even Begin Narrating
1. Choose a living book. Living books are alive with ideas and have a story aspect to them. The books read in HOD’s curriculum are living books.
2. Before your child narrates, skim the section your child will use for narration. Children’s narrations usually show how well they understand the book, but sometimes a child gives a confident, articulate narration that is eloquently wrong.
3. Children should briefly remind themselves of what they read last time before they begin narrating. If children will be narrating on a book they’ve read a portion of already, it is helpful for them to take a moment to recall what happened during the last reading session.
4. Children should have forewarning they will be narrating after the reading. When children know they will narrate before having to do so, they attend the reading with sharper attention. The plans in this curriculum let children know when they will be expected to narrate.
5. Children should read the selected passage once. Move toward having children do their own reading by age 9, as this will help improve narrations. If you have more than one child, only one child should narrate at a time.
In Christ,
Julie
