“In the act of narrating every power of his mind comes into play”
Charlotte Mason
What do you think when you hear the word narration? What do you expect from your child when you ask them to narrate back something you have just read to them? Does it sound like a complicated or vague term?
When you first learn about narration in a Charlotte Mason education it is easy to feel overwhelmed and confused by what it even is. Once you do figure out generally what it is, it is then easy to have unrealistic expectations or place too much pressure on yourself or your child.
In simple terms narration is simply the act of telling back something you have read, heard, seen or experienced. We all narrate things easily and naturally throughout our days without even thinking about it. For example we tell our spouse about a book we read, our child tells us about the birthday they went to, our friend tells us about her trip to the coast.
Having our children narrate their lessons is simply taking this retelling to the next level and giving our children a tool to remember and assimilate the information they are reading.
Charlotte Mason says:
“Education which demands a ‘conscious mental effort’, from the scholar, the mental effort of telling again that which has been read or heard. That is how we all learn, we tell again, to ourselves if need be, the matter we wish to retain, the sermon, the lecture, the conversation. The method is as old as the mind of man, the distressful fact is that it has been made so little use of in general education.”
(Vol. 6, p. 159-160)
In a Charlotte Mason education narration is also the process by which our children learn the art of composition. They begin to learn to organize and express information through oral narration then they transition to written narration in middle years and eventually in high school that becomes formal composition. A Parent’s Review article states:
“Given the right books, he is perfectly able to narrate what he has read or heard in complete sentences and in good English. By and by he writes his narrative, and he has learned the art of composition”.
“Books” The Parents Review 14(1903): 716-19
So what does narration look like in the early years?
First off, formal narration is not something that needs to be practiced before a child is 6 years old. You should feel no pressure before this, even just practicing. That doesn’t mean that some children won’t spontaneously narrate some stories you read to them or that you can’t occasionally have them talk about the story. However before age six there should be plenty of reading aloud together for enjoyment, without pressure to narrate.
Once formal lessons begin after a child is six, narration becomes a normal part of the routine. But you still need to be careful with the expectations and pressure that you have. I will admit that with my oldest I had unreasonable expectations and put too much pressure on him from an early age.
It takes awhile for a new student to learn the ropes of listening attentively, processing the information, and then narrating it back. A one sentence narration is a perfectly acceptable narration from a beginner.
All children will learn to narrate at different rates. Some will pick it up quickly and will be fluently narrating within weeks, while the progress of others will seem painfully slow, taking months or even years, but over time you will see growth.
Now I will give some examples of how narration has looked over the years in our homeschool.
The Beginning Narrator- 1st Grade
In first grade my children start narrating their school books back to me. At this age none of my children were reading independently so all school is done orally. A lesson goes something like this: I read aloud a passage from a book; maybe an Aesop’s fable, a fairy tale, some history, or a chapter of the Bible. Then I ask my child to “tell me what happened in the story” or something along those lines. My child then tells me what they remember.
This is when it gets difficult for mom. If the child gives a very short narration, or seems to miss important details it is very tempting to ask specific questions to try to drag the right answers out of them. This is where we need to remember that we are not looking for right answers but for the child to be making their own connections with the material. What we don’t want to fall into is the equivalent of comprehension questions.
If the child can’t narrate at all there are a few things you can try. You can remind the child to think back to the beginning and start there, you can start the narration yourself and let them finish( this should not be overused), or at times you may need to move on and remind them to pay more attention next time.
For children that have an especially hard time or just to add variety you can have the child draw a picture of the story and then tell you about the picture.
Here are some examples from when my daughter was in 1st grade:
“Well, King Alfred the great. um, he was a king. And everybody liked him”. From Our Island Story
“The milk pail fell off and all the stuff inside was all gone.” “ She had a pail with milk on her head and was just coming back from milking the cow…” “and then she thought that she would sell the butter and be very good. And then she dropped the pail off her head and all the eggs and stuff came off her head.”
Starting To Make Progress 2nd- 3rd Grade
For my children it has taken the whole first school year to learn basic narration. Then in about 2nd and 3rd grade they start to get better at it and their narrations become longer and more detailed.
However, progress is not always linear. They can make great progress for a while and then seem to fall back into short, one sentence or unclear narrations. I have found that this mostly happens when the difficulty of the material increases significantly, when they start reading their books on their own, or just when it is spring and they are having a hard time paying attention!
Whenever this happens I start to remind them at the beginning of each lesson to pay close attention, think about the beginning, the middle and the end, and to tell it back in order and with as much detail as they can remember.
Written Narration- 4th Grade
When my children are at about 4th grade we start to transition to written narrations. This starts with the child doing one narration a week written in a notebook.
This is another time where it may seem like the child is taking a huge step backward. By this time most children can orally narrate very well, but their first written narrations may be only one or two sentences. This is perfectly normal, as it is quite a transition from only oral to writing it down on paper.
This is the stage that my second son is currently at. He is great at orally narrating. He can tell in detail and in order what happened in the chapter he just read. But his written narrations are still very short.
Here are some examples of his written narrations:
“And then the uncle was like “I don’t care what you do with him.” And then Alan was like ”You just want a bigger ransom money for him.” Alan and David left each other. Alan told David when to go visit him and what time and what to say and how to signal if somebody else was looking for him.” from Kidnapped by RLS
And a very short written narration from Minn of the Mississippi: Minn almost died.
More Written Narrations- 5th -6th Grade
Between 5th and 6th grade we continue the transition to more written narrations. During this phase the number of written narrations will increase and so will the length. An important note about written narrations is that we don’t worry very much about grammar or spelling and I don’t go in and correct them. They learn those skills separately and as they get more comfortable with written narration they are encouraged to apply them to their written narrations. It is not until Jr. high and High school that the students’ written narrations are edited and then turned into more formal composition.
My son was in this transitional stage last year. He was writing 2-3 narrations a week and the rest were done orally.
Here is an examples of a written narration from The Hobbit:
“They met Elrond. And his elves sang a song about him and the dragon and the dwarves and the gold. They made jokes about Thorin’s beard being too long and not letting Bilbo eat too many cakes because he was too fat to get through keyholes. And then they talked to Elrond and he showed them some secret writing on Thorin’s map of the Lonely Mountain.”
That is a basic overview of oral and written narration from 1st through 6th grade.
Hopefully, I can write another post soon on how narration changes as we get up into Jr. High and High School.
If you are interested in the curriculum we use it is Ambleside Online a free Charlotte Mason curriculum.
I have a few posts about how we use it here:
5 Steps to Getting Started with Ambleside Online
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions!
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