heartofdakota.com

I must confess. My kids (7 & are not retaining their history. It seems to go in one ear and out the other! I know that narration is the key. If they can retell a history passage, then they should be able to retain it, but I have to literally DRAG narration out of my kids STILL!

HELP Me!

They don't do as well as they should on narrating their storytime books either.

Help me jumpstart this : )

We don't have retention issues, but I would like some hints on getting the narration rolling better.

One thought I have for narration is maybe a different approach. I tend to ask my children questions, leading questions...such as "Wow, sounds like many of the Pilgrims died. Why did so many die?" Then I let them discuss this orally with me. Or, before beginning I tell them that I am going to ask them some questions at the end.

Also, I have found that when my boys are occupied (drawing, playing with playdough, thinking putty) they actually listen better, even though they look like they are paying NO attention to me whatsoever. They actually do retain quite a bit.

Sometimes having them draw a picture of what you are reading helps them remember too.

Well, this might sound like I am not a very good homeschool mom, but at 7, I don't expect them to retain much of history. For my kids--it was such a huge concept outside their realm of reality that it took a while for them to get that this stuff 'really happened'. At 7, I guess if they could tell me at least one thing during the narrations I was okay with this. I figure we are just creating 'pegs' in their minds for them to hang future information on. Now, this is after I stressed and cried and struggled with my oldest daughter when she was younger. I did not have this attitude with her. I wish I would have, it would have saved us all kinds of sorrow. What changed me is that as my oldest daughter matured she began to retain what she was learning and after 2 years of HOD we are seeing great fruit. Her oral narrations are a huge leap of improvement over last years. She talks about what she is learning during non-school hours, which has Never happened before.

I think narration is a skill that is learned over time and some kids are going to be more natural at it than others. In our case--maturing and the ability to read on her own has helped immensely in her (dd11) narrations. Some things that I do to make this learning time more bearable (with my next dd) is read a paragraph and have the kids tell me one thing from that paragraph. that was laborious, but it helped them 'get' what they are suppose to be listening for. I also inform them ahead of the reading that they will be narrating so 'pay attention to names, places, and events'. And some books are more difficult to narrate than others for our kids. I will ask leading questions, but before I start reading--this seems to get their minds looking for the information.

Just hang in there, it will get better. Try some new techniques and when you find one that works go with it. I use to despair that this narration would never happen, but this year it truly has been amazing. Well, kiddos are up and about so must run!

Jess

I do have to remind myself to have realistic goals for how much younger dc (i.e. 5-7 yo) are able to retain. I found it especially hard to go back to teaching beginning narration skills to my middle ds after having gotten used to my oldest ds's more accomplished oral narrations. Can you remind me how long your dc have been orally narrating with HOD? If it's only been a year or two, then it is normal for narrating to be of a lesser quality, which results in retention being less solid. Bigger Hearts is the start of less guided oral narrating, but LHFHG and Beyond really focus on training dc to begin to orally narrate. If dc have not gone through both LHFHG and Beyond, and are starting in Bigger Hearts, they will still need time to be eased into narrating. It is a skill that takes much time to develop. Bigger Hearts has more challenging books in it as well, which makes narrating upon them more difficult for dc on the younger side of the target age range of it. I remember wondering if narration would ever come for my oldest about the time we were doing Beyond/Bigger, and then suddenly it began to click! I am seeing the same thing happen with my middle ds who is in the middle of Bigger Hearts now. They both did all of HOD's previous guides though, so really Bigger Hearts was their 3rd year of practicing oral narration.

Have you read through the "Narration Tips: Teacher's Part" in the Appendix of Bigger Hearts? This is a BIG help to me always, and even though I've read it many times over, I still do periodically as I am prone to forget portions of it otherwise (plus it is a reminder for me to be patient, as this is a quality I struggle to have sometimes). Are you going through the "How to Narrate: Student's List" with your dc? I do this about every 2 weeks or so. I just open our Bigger Hearts guide and go through the points with my ds. It has been a good reminder for us both. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Thanks guys.

My kids have done all of the previous guides, so they should really be pros ; )

My ds is now 8 and he is not a natural story teller. Narration has been hard for him in Bigger as well. He is just now really beginning to do better at retaining what was read and narrating it back. We are in unit 20 It helped me to read again and again that there is not just 1 good narration and to smile as he narrates, without any interruptions. I also read the narration tips to him at least once a week. I read them for the teacher every couple of weeks. I also do not give too much criticism or what I remember. One other thing that has helped is to model narration to him or to do part of the reading instead of the whole thing.
With all this said, in the beginning he had the hardest time with narrating history and the one small square books.
Success with your kiddo's and they will learn it as you keep directing and teaching them.

*warning Long Response*

You were over on that other topic where you mentioned Audio processing and you have them in therapy. Have you checked with the theripist as to helps? I can tell you what we do but if you have some one who knows your kiddos they can tailor it so much better.

But I have a few Introspective questions and I'll put my Currently working answers to them to see if that helps you.

Are you using the "I Need a Little Help" Card?
This card is invaluable to any child who just gets stuck. They give it to you and you narrate a few sentences. Then you hand it back. and Ideally they pick up where you left off. This is introduced in Bigger pretty early on so if you've been following that guide you should have this in your story time book.

Are you modeling (every day?) the correct way to Narrate?
This is handy cause our kiddos often need to see it hear it 100, 500, 1000 times before it clicks in their brain. Every time you narrate it's one more bean in the pot.

Do you look interested? What is your body language saying?
is it saying Now do it, come on... do it I know you can come on... just do it... (I'm speaking from my experience of being hugely frustrated and trying to pull it out of my dd1 it just doesn't work this way)... to hide your frustration and body language. Pull them into your lap, give em a cuddle and then try to get the narration out of them. They might be freezing up and need to just relax to get it out. Touch can also help them release the flow of words.

Small bites are ok one paragraph at a time, half a page, touching them rubbing backs to help them focus, what ever it takes.

Ok now I'm gonna get all transparent on y'all so be kind in your comments.
I used to get SO Annoyed I'd read the story 5 times. Still she could not even tell me one thing about the story!!! I was very dictatorial in my approach, My dd did not see me as some one she could go to for help. I wasn't always coming alongside my dd and nurturing her. Some days If she didn't do it I just spanked her as being disobedient and rebellious. Yes part of it was lack of attachment so there was a lot of disobedience and rebellion going on. It was so bad at points I didn't want to be around my dc. But I was unaware, she was having an inability THAT DAY to do the work.

We call her pendulum child around here, some days she's up some days she's down. So the fact that she could narrate on Tuesday did not mean she could do it On Thursday. That lack of consistency baffled me. I now understand it, I'm much more understanding, nurturing and compassionate toward her now. Some days she just can't. It's not a reflection on My ability as a teacher/parent/fill in blank... (God had to dig that one up by the roots). It just who she is, this wonderful funny sweet child God gifted to me to parent.

So I don't consider it cheating if she uses a picture I drew while I was reading the story to help her retell the narration. If it comes out a big messy garbled back ward to forward story I write it all out and help her put it in order. If she only remembers bits and pieces, I help her make them into sentences. It took a year but I think I have finally convinced her I'm here to help her over the hard bits. and hold her hand when the path has roots so she won't fall down.

Thanks for that Tansy. BTW, I am an adoptive mom too. My oldest (8) is from Vietam. However, it is my bio son that has the Auditory issues : ) I REALLY appreciate your helps on this!

I struggle because I tend to "baby" him because of his struggles. Then *my* pendulum swings the other way...I want to make sure I'm *not* babying him, so I may be expecting more than he can handle.

It isn't easy.

My kids from ps really struggled with narration when I first brought them home. I started with smaller parts and built up. I even sometimes had them listen for the part they did not think were true and then I would add something ridiculous just to get them listening. I am not sure if I am doing it "right" but I found the starting with a sentence and having them retell it them go to a paragraph then to a page really worked for us. For my younger kids during story time I did a lot of guess what is true and not true. This was particularly fun with Reddy fax who was always getting into trouble anyway. I also did a tell me what happened and guess what will happen next, then I would read and see who was right. I think sometimes it is not always listening as it is finding the words to describe it accurately so we did lots of practice with that. Other than that the narration tips in the back really work. And what you will find is that it is not so much about getting the to retain, they will do that, it is about getting them to love to learn so they can learn more on their own. HOD really is great for getting them to love to learn and to want more of what they have. I now often find my kids taking it a step farther or inventing their own similar things to HOD projects with something different. You got some great advice already. Hope something here helps as well.

Narration has been getting better for us too and as CTC was our first guide w/ HOD, I'm happy with how far my dd has come.

As far as retention...about 2 years ago I kept freaking out over my dd not being able to recall everything and sometimes stand there with the most blank expression on her face when I would orally quiz her or test her w/out the opportunity for open books. A very good homeschooling friend of mine helped me through this. She told me that it is a rare child that can have that photographic/perfect recall, most like the rest of us..we don't use it..we lose it...so don't fret..and, she said, everything you teach your child will come back around it will all cycle again.
So, that being said, I realized she was very very correct..and it really hit home when we began using HOD. Just look at the guides, it will all cycle back again.
I think as long as your child has been exposed to the concepts, and at the very least has shown even the most tentative grasp at the that concept... don't fret because it will be repeated again at some point.
I used to drill my dd over and over and go back again again again to that same concept...and about burned her out. I so wanted perfection. I was her worst enemy lol..when I did let go of that frantic need to want her to recall/retain everything I saw something amazing happen:

..at the beginning of CTC, my dd was watching Destination Truth, where they were investigating some very old pyramids..she jumped up raced over to the bookshelf and grabbed her geography book and said, "Look momma! I read about that mummy they are talking about and (pointing to the globe) and thats where they are!" I was flabbergasted ..I had never seen her do that before about any of her history.
Just when you think your kiddo may not have gotten it..lol just wait they'll prove you wrong lol Mostly I love how HOD helped me to really take the smaller nuggets of recall from my child and help her build that skill and i think now she's able to narrate/recall about 60 - 75% without struggling or me prompting. She still has days where that incredibly irrating blank and glazed look crosses her face and I know the brain has gone somplace else ..those are the days I take the breath and go back to prompting.

We also figured out that she suffers from a level of test anxiety, her brain literally freezes ..my husband discovered this..we printed out two math tests for her one day, he told her to complete the worksheets and challenged her not to use her book. Now, she had taken these same two sheets a week before as tests and failed them.. miserably failed them because they were tests..She completed the "worksheets" in about 35 minutes and scored high 80's on both...
I now focus more on encourging her to give me the main points and have eased way back from testing..OUr goal over the next year is to slowly raise the the intensity of "testing" helping her to manage it in smaller chunks (hmmlol kinda like how Carrie builds the the intensity and level of oral narrations )

Again, I'm going to praise Carrie and God's hand on her for her beautiful gift to write a curriculum that is balanced and giving/forgiving for each child's learning style. HOD cycles concepts back in a way that makes it new and exciting the 2nd, and 3rd (and hopefully a highschool line) even a 4th time around. I am thankful for this board and for the helps within the curriculum that now make it a joy to teach and to watch my dd be turned on to learning.

So don't fret..take it one skill at a time, one day at time. however, if retention seems to affect more than just school work, have your kiddo tested to see if there is a processing disorder, and then you'll know how to tweak his/her curriculum to maximize retention.
I know this was long, I hope my experiences help. The other ladies here are great at giving good advice.