Listening and Narrating in Homeschooling

You have the idea of how narration works, but you are wondering “We have 5 students, how do I do it?” or “We have teenagers, how do we get started?” or “I have 3 pre-schoolers, how do I do this and care for them?”  These are all great questions, and the answers may surprise you!

 

First off, I am speaking from experience!  We have 5 children – the oldest is 14, and the youngest is 3.  Two are pre-schoolers; three are students in our home school.  Although things do not always go as planned, I believe we have worked out some ways of doing narration that make it as smooth as possible!

 

Let’s start with the mom with several students, old enough to narrate when asked to.  You just read a passage, and you want a narration.  There are a couple of options here.  You could break the passage down into sections – one for each student.  You could make the section for your youngest student very short, and make each section longer, and after each section, stop and request a narration from one of your students.   The other possible option would be to read the passage all at once, and then ask the youngest to narrate.  When she is done, ask her older brother to narrate, and to add something that she didn’t share.  Keep moving up the students, from youngest to oldest.  The oldest will have to pay VERY close attention to remember something that hasn’t already been said.  You will probably be reading more than one book or passage per day.  Ask for a different child to narrate each story or passage.

 

I would suggest trying one of these methods each day – not just pick one method and stick with it all the time – after all, variety is the spice of life, right?!  Sometimes you will be reading to just one child, and that would be a great opportunity for a one-on-one narration.  This is especially useful for the child that hasn’t gotten comfortable with narration, yet, and is hesitant to let loose and give a great narration in front of all the siblings.  Eventually, you will want to encourage doing the narrations in front of everyone, but you don’t have to push that until you are both comfortable with narration. 

 

Now, on to the mom who hasn’t used this method before, but your children are older.  Actually, it’s no different than teaching a 7 year-old to narrate.  You will just use more grown up books!  Start with fairly short passages – just a page or two – and ask for your child to tell back what they have just heard.  You both will probably get comfortable with this fairly quickly.  You can move to longer passages (like a whole chapter) quicker and eventually you can request the narrations in writing.  I wouldn’t move to all written narrations too soon, however.  You want to keep hearing the narrations as your child is thinking them out for quite some time.  Again, do not request a narration for every chapter they read, or you will take all the joy out of reading the great story. 

 

What do you do with all the little ones while you are reading to your students, and they are giving their narrations?  Have them sit with you!  The great thing about homeschooling is that you get to have all your children together, and you are home with them!  Don’t scoot the littles off on their own while the rest of you ‘do school’!  You would be amazed what the little ones will pick up just because they are in the same room with you while you teach and interact with your older children!  Now, if you’ve not had all your children together for school time before, you need to expect to spend some time training the littles to sit still and quiet during school.  I think it’s perfectly acceptable to have them coloring, playing with playdoh or other quiet toys, or even looking through books on their own.  This has made it easier for us to train the little ones to sit quietly with us while we are reading and narrating.  Some children will have it down in just one week, others may take a month of consistent training to get everyone used to the new set-up.  The extra time and days that feel ‘lost’ to training little ones to sit quietly will be made up many times over through the years of quiet cooperation from your children!  Don’t despair, and don’t give up!  You can do it!

 

I want to offer one more word of encouragement.  Even after you all are used to being together for school, and your little ones are able to sit quietly while you teach, doesn’t mean they will always do it!  There will be days that they seem to ‘forget’ how to sit quiet and still for you – don’t despair, they just need some ‘reminder training’, I call it.  Be sure not to let it go one bit!  Give a gentle reminder as soon as they start to slip up.  If you do it right away, you have a better chance of the gentle reminder being all that is needed.  If you let the first instance go, they will see if they can go farther, and they will keep going farther until you step up and put a stop to it.  If it goes for too long, it will take more effort and time on your part to re-train, and it will be harder for you to stay calm and gentle yourself!  (Don’t ask me how I know this!)

 

I have given you a great understanding of how living books and narration work.  Does it seem too easy?  Does it seem like it’s not enough?  What about all the testing to ‘make sure’ they are comprehending what they are reading?  Well, I want to assure you that you will know immediately whether your child understands what was just read to him, and when she is struggling with attention to your reading.  This is really a very gentle method that produces the fruit of a well-educated child!

 

OK, I would love to hear from you – especially seasoned CMers – how do you do narrations with more than one child?  What has worked for you?  For you who are new to CM – do you have any questions that I haven’t addressed about narration, yet?  Please ask away, and I’ll answer to the best of my ability!

 

Comments

[Misti]

Sue,
I have done all those things that you've suggested and they have all worked at various times with various readings. (I like the occassional variety, too.) At first my kids would get frustrated with each other for "you said what I was going to say," but they're getting better about it now.
One of the latest narration techniques in my house has been by my 5yo dd. She's not yet reading on her own, but LOVES to be read to. After I finish reading the book to her, then she wants to "read" it to me. Of course she uses the pictures on the pages as prompts and the story is not a word-for-word (reading), but I recently realized that what she is doing is simply her version of narration. (Insert lightbulb "ON" here!!) YEAH! (And a little Honesty here: At first I didn't always want to take the time to listen to her "read" every single story back to me after I read them to her, but once the lightbulb went on in my head--the IS her narrations!--I now S L O W down and listen to her "read" at every chance!)
Sue, your talk at the STL Expo was so very encouraging and and a wonderful CM refresher for me! I *know* that this method works for us and I really don't know why we got away from it in the first place, except I do remember feeling like we it was just almost TOO easy, we could not possibly be doing ENOUGH "school." HA! I have been praying about it so much since the Expo I now truly feel that this is the Lord's will for our homeschooling journey and I'm so grateful for it! You are an angel! :-)
Many thanks and blessings,
Misti in MO

[Sue Pruett]

Misti,

I'm so glad you were encouraged at the expo. That's our goal - to encourage homeschoolers in their journey!

The narration with your 5 year old sounds so PRECIOUS! Good for you to slow down and take the time to listen to her. This is not only helping her perfect her narration techniques, but it builds into her life because Mommy is willing to spend time with her!

I pray your homeschooling journey is joy-filled for you and your children!

-Sue
aka "The Charlotte Mason Girl"