This is the second post in the Narration Basics series. View the first post at Narration Basics: Expecations.
Sherry, a blog reader, emailed me to say, “I can’t seem to make heads or tails of notebooking. I don’t know how to begin with ‘prompting’ the writing part. Do you ask questions? Do you tell her what to write?”
Although Sherry didn’t use the word narration, this is essentially a question about written narrations. Let’s assume that your child has read a chapter from a book or that maybe you’ve read it out loud to him. This child is at least third grade, the time when you begin to introduce written narrations, and may be as old as an eighth grader. This child is also accustomed to oral narrations. But now you are trying to make the shift into written narrations.
The shift is a slow transition that requires some intermediate steps. Don’t rush the processs. You have many years to move to and then to hone written narrations.
The Prompts
Yes, you can ask prompting questions to get the narration flowing. (Actually you can use those same questions for oral narrations.)
I have designed a free printable with narration starters. And I have an article at The Heart of the Matter that gives you more options for narration prompts. Print some prompt lists and put those in your Mom Notebook. Or you may want to give your child his own list for his notebook or minioffice.
Before writing anything, choose a question or two and let your child narrate orally. Discuss as necessary to perfect the narration if certain facts are omitted. Then tell your child to write down what he just told you orally.
That sounds easy enough, but most children making this transition are going to need more help than the command to “write down what you said.”
Other Helps for Written Narration
To smooth the transition to written narrations, there are a few “crutches” you can implement. Don’t think that crutches are bad. We use crutches when we have an injury that is healing. No one would criticize you for using crutches when you’ve sprained your ankle. In the same way, if a child needs a “crutch” as he develops a skill, then feel no shame in offering it. No one stays on crutches forever. (They hurt your armpits!) Eventually your child will move past these helps into full compositions.
- During the oral narration stage, jot down a brief outline of what your child says. Or you can work together to create a brief outline or list of key ideas. Let your child compose the written narration with the help of those notes.
- Give your child word banks with vocabulary essential to the narration.
- You can offer your child a notebooking page with two or three divisions on it and ask her to answer one question per division. Use sticky notes to attach the question right where the answer goes so she can’t forget.
- Use a timeline for narration. The structure of chronological order can help some children know what to write next.
- Record your child’s oral narration and let him play it back as he dictates what he said.
I’d love to hear what types of “crutches” you’ve used to help your children make the shift from oral to written narrations in your Charlotte Mason homeschool.
Read More
Read part 3 in the Narration Series: Dealing with Narration Problems
Love your tips for narration. It’s one of my favorite parts of homeschooling and it really helps children formulate their thoughts and learn to speak their ideas.
Jana
My biggest revelation about writing and written narration was when I realized that writing is just “talk on paper”. I love your ideas for moving the child’s words from their thoughts, to oral sentences, to writing on paper. For some kids it progresses slowly (my boys were slow writers) but once they get it going it seems so natural that you wonder why you worried about it. I can honestly say that my high school age boys have gone “crutchless” and it is wonderful to see. 🙂
These first two posts on narration are EXACTLY what I needed. It’s one of those things that I want to know more details on what it looks like and sounds like, but I always feel that I need more information! These two posts have taken narration and taken it down to each minute part, considering its importance in the greater picture. It’s like when I was first learning to knit — I saw many books, blogs, and such that showed me step A and step B, but I needed to see steps A.1 and A.2 and A.3/4! Your posts are providing me with all those in-between steps!
Needed this as I keep forgetting to get the girls to do it!
Love the print-outs too as I am a visual person who needs visual reminders.
Thank you : )
http://www.traceymansted.blogspot.com
many thanks for these tips!
Jimmie, I have only a very girlish and limited addition to your post. Provide your child with a diary. I showed my daughter my girlish diary and she became inspired to start writing down lines in her notebook. I never look in my daughter’s diary so that shows it educational limitation. However, before we have a holiday break I give a small notebook/diary and we correct mistakes, talk about the text etc. of the travel journal.
Paula
Good notebooking pages make the transitions easier – Beginner writers ease into the actual handwriting on wide primary lines (with red and blue), then intermediate writers use narrower black and dotted lined notebook pages, and more advanced writer use lined pages.
We use a combination of notebook pages with minibooks. The pictures and titles on the front of the minibooks give visual clues and the small space inside doesn’t daunt the young writer.
Our best start was a notebook with half page open for drawing. Young narrators can draw, and orally dictate their narrations until they have the skills and confidence to write on their own.
Within a few years, narrations are a natural response to any reading and their notes become detailed, creative and more advanced!
Thank you for these helpful suggestions. My oldest daughter loves doing written narrations, but I’m quite sure my second daughter, who will be starting written narration this year, will need a lot more encouragement. Making a word bank was helpful when she struggled with oral narration. I also sometimes ask, “What did you see in your head when I was reading?” That prompt has always produced beautiful narrations!
This is EXACTLY where I am at with my son who will be 10 on Sunday and entering 4th grade. He does AMAZING oral narrations but the minute a pencil is in his hand – something blocks his brain! Seriously! It is so frustrating! As a crutch last year, I had him narrate orally and I would act as his scribe, then he would copy his narration in his own handwriting. Then we moved on to the key word outline like you described above (something I learned from IEW).
I was just talking to him about how writing was something we would be working on a lot TOGETHER this new school year.
I like this idea. And it occurs to me that if you use Teaching the Classics (available from IEW) that the lists of qunsoites at the back of the book would make good writing prompts. I used to have my older kids do something similar with the historical books (fiction and non fiction) they read. They read a lot of books that didn’t fit the time period we were officially studying, so I had them write a brief summary of the book, and put it in a 3 ring binder that was divided into time periods after awhile they had a timeline of stories. As we moved on to a new historical period, we could relate it to books they had already read.