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Dd is having a little trouble with the oral narration in Preparing. It's a little hard to explain...she uses strange voices--like a babyish voice or a monotone "robot" voice. The information she gives is so disjointed, like she's trying to remember exact phrases and quote them verbatim. But they all come out so randomly, not a narrative at all. She seems really nervous about it and says, "It's haaarrrrrd! I don't remember anything!" But once she gets started, she remembers quite a bit.

I *think* she doesn't know the PERFECT way to narrate (she is very concrete, and a first child to add), and so she dreads it. Where should I go from here? Should I prompt her? Here's an example from today:

Mom-Tell me about what you read in your science book.
Dd-I don't know! I can't remember! It was all about some rules.
Mom-Can you tell me about the rules?
Dd (in robot voice)-Don't look under any rocks. Don't take anything from the desert. Don't touch a rattlesnake.
Mom-Anything else?
Dd-I didn't understand the rest.
Mom-What part didn't you understand?
Dd-This paragraph.
Mom-Let's read it together. (she reads it out loud--it's about a walking stick and drawing a square in the sand) What part is confusing?
Dd-Nothing.

At this point, I feel like we've come so far from what oral narration is supposed to be. Sometimes, she does it really well. But more and more lately, it's like this. It's totally uncharacteristic of her ability. I really think it has to do with her feeling like she is in unknown territory and can't follow a script to make it "perfect." I have not been critical of her narration in the past. Only correcting a misremembered fact here and there. The only thing I stop her for is the unnatural voices. This is something I'm working on with her in general (it happens a lot--not just in narration).

Where should I go from here?

I feel for you! My oldest dd has dreaded oral narrations in the past and they were hard for both of us. She, too, wanted a script to follow, to make it perfect. Last year was our first year into regular oral narrations and I wanted to pull my hair out. By the end of the year it was better.

I did a few things to help her:
1. we went over the oral narration tips in the appendix
2. I would read a paragraph and then she would narrate; and I would gradually increase the amounts she had to narrate.
3. More encouragement for her
4. Lowering my expectations for me.

Last week after her narration my comments went something like this:
'I can tell you really paid attention to the reading--very good.' "I liked how you had a lot of detail from the story.' 'Next time could you also tell me how the characters were feeling or thinking?'

This type of encouragement/correction went very well. My dd is very literal and factual so getting to the 'heart' of the story is a challenge (which is why I love DITHOR--it helps her with that!).

Keep plugging away--it will get better!

Jess

Do you think she might have some Auditory processing issues happening? This sounds like My eldest!!
She is listening but not storing the information in a retrievable area, and she is not relating to it. It is frustrating to you and more frustrating to her, she is coping by trying to remember exact words and phrases from the book.
try 50% input with the narration tips go rule by rule you modeling one sentence then asking her to give you one. So she is not on the spot in having to figure it all out herself, and your modeling will trigger her remembering parts of the story (hopefully). If she gives you sentence fragments model the correct sentence back to her and have her repeat it.

I would also introduce a reward jar for this activity. If she gives you a great sentence she gets say 6 beads, if she gives you a fragment and then self corrects seh gets 3 beads and if its a fragment and you correct or your prompting gets something from the story she gets 1 bead. when the jar if full she gets to pick a reward like a hike, one cherry pie at mcdonalds play place (it's hot in TX), a 2$ trip to the dollar store. This will help her not dread the narration but give her a reason to really try. have her help you with suggestions for coupons, and rewards she would like.

Like "Don't look under any rocks." would get 3 beads but Mom would model it back in a nice tone of voice.
the other 2 sentences because they were not prompted would get 6 each.
So a 1 word response "desert" as a response would get 1 bead after she repeated your modeling the sentence "The story is about the desert."
so any effort is rewarded, this helps her stay motived to wrack her brain for the information that is in there.

HI mariaw,

I read your post and I am going through the same exact thing with my almost 9 year old son.
He is doing the robot monotone voices too and saying he doesn't remember. However, his little sister who is 6 is narrating
the stories to me and he seems not to want to be outdone.
Also we are just starting with HOD and CM style and I have him in Bigger and I am wondering if I should have started with
Preparing...oh well that is a different quandary.
I have been doing some reading from the Ambleside Online website (Burgess Stories etc)
and I have been trying to get him to practice narrating. So I am trying to keep the reading selection
short before I ask to narrate. He is just starting and I am considering since it is a new skill I need to
give him some adjustment time. He has always been fairly advanced so whenever he does struggle
I find myself having to really deal with my own expectations of him and let him grow and learn
in his time. This is REALLY hard for me. I am thinking that in 6 months time if he is still having
difficulties I might record my narration(s) and then let him sit and listen to them in short intervals
on headphones. I am sorry I don't have any great suggestions like the other awesome posts
but I just wanted to relate that I am going through similar issues with my son.
May you continue to have hope and blessings in your endeavors.

Jess

This is excellent advice from Jess:

mamaloves4 wrote: I did a few things to help her:
1. we went over the oral narration tips in the appendix
2. I would read a paragraph and then she would narrate; and I would gradually increase the amounts she had to narrate.
3. More encouragement for her
4. Lowering my expectations for me.

Being able to orally narrate well takes time and so much patience, which is something I can be short on! Having done oral narration for multiple years with my eldest ds has encouraged me as I begin it with my second son. My oldest ds does very well narrating now, so when I was back to square one teaching it to my second ds as a new skill for him, I was ready to pull my hair out too. I had to remind myself how it was teaching my eldest way back when. I've come to think of orally narrating well to be as important of a skill as reading well, and that makes me stick with it through the tough times at the start. This is a common topic of discussion, because narrating is a new concept to many of us moms, and because it is a skill that takes much time to learn. Here are some past threads that are helpful:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4683&p=34439
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4265&p=31406
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2629&p=19480

As far as the monotone voice, my oldest ds has done that. It helped him for me to model a narration done in that kind of voice, and then ask him what he thought of it. Then, I modeled the same narration in an upbeat interesting way, and we discussed the difference. I explained that this kind of monotone, bored sounding narration really seemed more like a bad attitude thing to me, and that I didn't allow him to have that attitude any other time with me, so why would I allow it in narrating? He was surprised by that - he didn't think it sounded like a bad attitude problem until he heard me do it that way. (Really I think they're just frustrated at first, and it probably isn't a bad attitude thing, but it helped for him to hear me say it like that and explain my reaction of frustration to it.) If he started out in that voice again on another day, I'd say "You're doing it again." Then, I'd do the monotone example again, and then the upbeat one. It finally got to the point if he started out in a monotone voice, and I said "You're doing it again", and he anticipated my boring voice example he'd say, "Oh mom, pleassssssssse don't do it in that voice!" Then, we'd laugh together, and he "got it". He stopped doing it altogether then. He too is my oldest, and I agree with you that those oldest dc really just want to get it right, do it perfectly - and there is no one right way or perfect way to do narrations, so they struggle with that a bit. It helped my ds to tell him that if 1000 dc read the same chapter in a book and gave 1000 different narrations on that chapter, all 1000 narrations would be different from one another but all 1000 could also be "right". The idea is to tell the story with as much detail as possible in your own words, though it is alright to borrow phrases or technique from the author. This seemed to take the pressure off of him.

I also tried to be very encouraging of his attempts to orally narrate (other than I did not allow the monotone voice). I said he had to at least give me 3 sentences (at the beginning of his learning it) - one from something that happened in the beginning, one from something that happened in the middle, and one from something that happened at the end. This helped him pay attention to sequencing. I also did the "your turn/my turn" co-narrating described in Beyond. I kept the narrating on short amounts of reading, and then I narrated the rest, making sure not to go over the top with my narrating (I kept it to 5-7 sentences so he wouldn't feel like he'd never be able to do what I did). Persevere on with your ds - he WILL get it and it IS going to be an important, wonderful skill for him to have in life!!! You are not alone in this - this is quite a common reaction to beginning oral narrations, and it will improve.

In Christ,
Julie

THANK YOU!!! All of you have given me some great ideas to try. I forget that Narration is a "skill" to learn (like reading, as Julie said) since my dd can describe ANYTHING ELSE in the most fastidious detail talking feverishly at a million miles an hour!! Even books she's reading for pleasure. It's just when I ask her to do it on the spot, that we have the problem. I'm going to try your ideas and continue to be patient. Thanks again!