Narrating: Could we share examples of it? My Early Example

[my3sons]

When we first began narrating, I was worried. My son has always had auditory trouble, and it made remembering what was read difficult. He had speech for several years to learn to speak properly. (He was 7 1/2 weeks premature.) Hence, narrating was a scary concept to me. I wanted to share an example of his earlier narrating, and then one of his narrating now. Here is an example of his oral narrating during the use of Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory (he was 6 1/2 years old), and this is from "A Lion to Guard Us", p. 79-81:

Amanda suddenly stood up. She could walk! John Rolf and his wife were looking over the rail. John Rolfe said, "The ship is caught between two rocks."

His wife said that at least "we won't sink now".

John Rolfe said, "Yeah, but he ship could break in half."

Men were getting the boats ready, and John Rolfe said, "Women and children go first."

Then they went ashore. The captain told them this was the land of Bermuda. One woman cried out, "The is the land of devils! They sent this storm, and they were going to break the ship in half."

The sailors said, "I mean to get this boat to shore."

O.k. So that was about the beginning of his narrating. I was pretty happy with it because I had at least gotten him to remember the big ideas and people's names/places, and to stop starting every sentence with "And then...". I'll share the second example of narrating next in another post because it's pretty long.

[my3sons]

O.k. So, here is an example of my son's oral narration from doing Bigger Hearts...

Narration of Baby Island, p. 156-160
November 1, 2007
By: Wyatt, almost 8 years old

The interested 3 people were on the shore, watching 5 men coming from the big boat. Three did not have sailor uniforms, and 2 did. Mr. Perterkin said, ?They?re doing us no good,? and he ran to get his gun and bullets and binoculars.

When he got back, 2 men were lifting the boat up, and the 3 other men were going crazy! One of them was fussing with baby Ann Elizabeth. Another one was playing with the twins, and the other one was hugging Mary and Jean. And they were shouting, ?Daddy! Daddy!?

Mary asked, ?How did you find us on this desert island after the Orminta sank??

Daddy said, ?Actually the Orminta didn?t sink.?

?Didn?t sink?? both girls exclaimed.

?Another vessel came, and your lifeboat was lowered by mistake.?

?Mistake?!?? the girls exclaimed.

Daddy said, ?Actually another vessel came and took all the passengers aboard.?

?But how did you find us, Daddy?? Mary and Jean asked.

?It was rather difficult. We found Jean?s letter.?

?My letter?!?? Jean exclaimed.

?Yes, we found it and sent one of it to Aunt Emma, and a couple of others to the government. We wouldn?t have found you without their help!?

They went aboard and slept for the night because they were going to Mr. Peterkin?s shanty, and the pudding was gone.

And Prince Charley and old Halfred had big fat stomachs from eating the pudding, and they had an embarassment look in their eyes.

And Mr. Peterkin said, ?It was a good pudding, with no ginger in it too!?

The next morning they took one last look at the island. They were rather sad because of Mr. Peterkin not coming. But when they went to his shanty, they found he had locked the door and he had his chest, his singing horn, and Halfred his parrot.

He said, ?I can?t be alone on Baby Island with no babies! I?m going back to marry Della!?

And they all went to Australia, and that?s the end!

O.k. So, that's an example of his latest oral narration. I think he's improved so much. He still has mistakes - "embarassment" instead of "embarassed"; "Della" is the wrong name, it should have been "garlic" instead of "ginger", and I helped him pronounce the word "Orminta". However, overall, lots of improvements. He tries extra hard on days I am typing his narrations, and he really enjoys that! So, every day of narrations is not this lengthy or detailed.

[6timeboymom]

our narration usually goes,
"mom!!! do I have to??? I can't remember anything! why do I hafta do this all the time?? you read it!!! you know what it was about!!!" accompanied by the appropriate whine and the adequate eye rolling and foot stomping.



I usually have to prompt quite a bit yet. Do you write your narrations? We just repeat them to daddy. (or sometimes a bigger brother, or we call grandma or grandpa!)

[my3sons]

Hi Darci!

We only type our narrations when it comes up in the plans , which is about once every 20 days of plans. This is written in Beyond... and Bigger... Otherwise, we just do it orally. My son LOVES it when I type his narrations though. I think it is wise to do it only every so often like in the plans because that makes it special. I print them and stick them in clear sleeves in his binder. He loves to read them to Daddy at supper too. I thought I'd share a few of them because I was so wanting to read examples of narrations when we first began doing it. I didn't know if I was doing it right or not. I just had to copy and paste them here, so I thought maybe someone would like to see an example or two. By the way, it is very nice to meet you!

[6timeboymom]

that's a great idea! I know how much my 4 yr old especially likes to dictate while I type! we do that for letters and emails a lot.

[Tansy]

himmmmm... my dd narrates this way

ok Honi tell me what was the story about.
"um .. um... I was in la la land. and playing with my toes."
Mom re-reads narration instructions and then the story. pausing every 2 paragraphs to point out important facts. now Honi Can you narrate it back for me?

DD "well er" (gasp for air) Ahem, hack, looks away, fidgets in seat, fixes hair, sniffs.. "John er um John Smith." sniffs, coughs, fidgets. "saw some indians"
er.. um.. er.. um.. fixes hair, they died like Hudson (our dog that yup you guessed it... died 6 months ago) "Mommy will Hudson come back alive like Asland?"
Mommy " Can you go on about John Smith?
dd "Um no I can't remember."

Mommy "oki doky That was good you remembered who the story was about and applied events in the story to events in your own life. very good"

And that is a good day she gave me a name of some one in the story.

Some times I just have her narrate every paragraph or so.. it seems to help her wandering, toe fiddling, mind, stay with me. She has never liked answering questions. so I try to keep it low key, but from day 1!, of home schooling this is typical in one ear and out the other.

[hippiechyck]

in "A Charlotte Mason Companion" by Karen Andreola, there's a whole chapter on narration for all ages...i highly recommend the whole book, but that chapter specifically if you can borrow it

[6timeboymom]

Tansy! ROFL! that's like my house!
I also find the boys try to get the "right" answer before their brother does. Then they get mad when I ask the brother to narrate a section.

When I know I am going to be asking them to narrate a passage, I do tell them up front "Now after this I will be asking you about this reading!" so they can't say "I didn't know I was gonna hafta tell it!!" I also use a lot of prompting questions. I'm hoping it will get better but honestly we don't narrate as much as we could. I'm talking aobut the bigger boys, too-the youngers don't narrate.