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I was pretty sure about using CTC for my daughter but I realized I'm not really sure about written narrations. She's always been a "natural" oral narrator, but I've never given her any instruction on written narration. I don't want to assume and end up in the wrong guide. DD just turned 10 and in 4th grade.

I called her in and read her a random selection of paragraphs from a book and told her to retell the story on paper. It took her about 5 minutes and here is what she came up with:

I woke up sometime in the night. It was very hard to breathe in the stables. Ginger was coughing. One of the horses was restless. The stable was filled with smoke. From above I could hear crakaling and snapping. Suddenly, the ostler came in and tried to pull one horse after another out of the stables. We wouldn't move. The crakaling and snapping grew louder. I looked up and saw a red glow. Outside, I heard men shout, FIRE!

All spelling and punctuation was her own, except she asked me how to spell "ostler". Obviously her writing is choppy so she could use some help with that and varying her sentence structure. So with this being her first attempt at a written narration, would you suggest Preparing or CTC? She fits in CTC for everything else, so I'd like to place her there if she is ready.

Thanks for your help!

Her narration looks pretty good, especially for a first try! But, for narrations in CTC, dc have to do their own reading independently and then write their narration. The reading is fairly challenging (especially "The Story of the Ancient World"). If she is a strong reader, and if you think she can do the "I" boxes of the CTC plans quite well or grow into them fairly quickly, then she is ready for CTC and should use it. Here is a link to the first week of plans of CTC - you'll want to look especially at Day 4's Reading about History box, as well as at the other "I" boxes...

http://www.heartofdakota.com/pdf/CTC-First-Week.pdf

HTH! I do think if she places in CTC according to the placement chart, and if the "I" boxes look like they'll fit dd well, CTC would be a super placement!

In Christ,
Julie

Thanks Julie!

I found a sample for chapter 30 of Story of the Ancient World so I 'll take a look at that today.

Sounds good! Keep in mind this is a skill to grow into. If she does fairly well, she's ready for CTC. If it's a total bust, PHFHG would be better. Let us know what you find!

In Christ,
Julie