Monday, June 30, 2008

An Example of Narration

I thought I would post a couple of examples of narration from our language studies this morning. These are from Cameron, age 7, and Sophia, age 5. You can see the difference in maturity, detail memory, and re-telling of things.

This morning I read a short story to the kids entitled "The Little Girl Who Loved to Be Dirty". Narration method requires that the child retell the story to you in their own words. This can be done in nearly all subjects, and it is profitable for developing proper language patterns. Every few weeks, I go back through their recent narrations, and I read their own stories aloud back to them. It's really interesting to see their reaction to hearing their own words and word choices. Sometimes they are really proud of how it sounds, and other times, they understand just by listening that they could have told something better. I never correct them when they're narrating, but do give gentle prompts to keep their flow going at times. I write their words down exactly as they give them to me. If you see capitalization of words, it's because those are the words they emphasized in their storytelling!

So without further ado, here are just a couple of very simple exercises from this morning.


There once was a little girl who HATED to have baths. Whenever her mom told her that she had to take a bath, she WHINED and CRIED!
The little girl went to bed, and had a dream. She was in a pigpen in MUD! She thought it was very good. And when someone called "SUPPER", all she found there was slop. And there was old corncobs, and rotten potatoes and the ends of tomatoes.
The little girl thought it was TERRIBLE then. And the little girl went down the street to her own house. She snuck in the back door, and went upstairs and took a bath and put on purple flowered pajamas. She dug down deep in her clean bed. THE END
By Cameron


Once there was a little who loved to be dirty. And then her mom said, "You have to take a bath!" And the little girl said, "Aw, I don’t WANT to take a bath. I don’t like them! I want to be dirty!!!"
And then the little girl had a dream. And all the sudden her dream came true. She was in a pigpen. And it was with mud and 3 little pigs. And somebody called "SUPPER!" And there was old slop. And the pigs enjoyed the slop. But the little girl thought it was horrible. She cried and went on the road to her natural home.
And she came from the back door, went up stairs and took a bath. And her mom said, "You had quite a dream!"

THE END
BY SOPHIA GRACE


The thing that interested me the most today out of these, is that nowhere in the story was the little girls house referred to as her "natural" home. But that was Sophie's word of choice! I found that particularly amusing! :)

Thanks for stopping by.

5 Words of Wisdom:

Kim M. said...

Thanks for sharing that. I have heard of this type of learning and I am really interested in trying this type of method(narration) with my boys. One of them has a hard time "listening" so I think it would be very beneficial for him.

Julia said...

Love it Tara. We've been doing some narration this year and I LOVE to hear them retell the stories. I've been tempted to post a few myself, but thought only you and my mom would enjoy it.:) Well, I should go clean my "natural" home. (I love that child!)

Juwah

Kim M. said...

Hey I'm offended Juwah. I'd enjoy it too. So post away. I've been using the narration method lately too.... just finished reading about the Charlotte Mason method and liked the idea.

Julia said...

Sorry Kim...Ok, so my Mom, Tara and Kim would enjoy the narration. :)

Tara;
Yesterday we got to the Dirty Girl story too. So fun to hear them narrate that. Quick questionthough. How do you get your kiddos to not give too much info or do you not have to instruct them in this? Jesse Wise suggest around 4 sentences I think, but ours are ALWAYS longer. Do you know if this is a problem? Should it be corrected or is this OK? I guess I need to research narration more. But if my smart friend already knows, than why should I do the work of researching myself? :)

Kim M. said...

Naw Julia, you know I was kidding about being offended.

Seriously though gals, you don't know how encouraging it is to read these types of things. I felt God was leading me to home-school my kids, but I am the only person in my whole church and family that does it. So... reading your little updates has been encouraging. :-)