How do you help your child narrate when....

[cirons]

....they don't understand the text?
We are doing Preparing and reading the storytime novel 'Fountain of Life'. Jewish customs, rituals, etc are all a very new concept for my daughter as we have NEVER discussed them or come across them before. Even understanding the concept of what pharisees are compared to sadducees etc is new. She has been doing ok in generally understanding what is going on but on the days when she is called to narrate, she really struggles as she finds she does not understand it enough to be able to communicate it back. Sometimes she finds this with the history texts that we read, but the directed questions often help her to see she understands more than she thinks. The storytime narrations don't have directed questions, so I am just wondering how I can be helping her to complete this task without her feeling like a failure? What should I be expecting from her?
(As an aside, I LOVE this book....I am learning so much about Jewish and biblical customs that I never understood! I love living books!!!)

Thanks ladies!

Corrie

[my3sons]

Corrie - You are certainly not alone in wishing dc could get these narration skills down just a little bit quicker!!! I so know how you are feeling. I've found the Narration Tips: Teacher's List in the Appendix to be so helpful to me. In the "Before Narrating" section, it helps my dc for me to follow the guideline "Introduce the section being read. Review briefly what was read last time." You can also use CM's "informing idea". Also, it helps to tell my dc before I start reading that they will need to narrate after the reading (a little thing that helps a lot).

During the narration, I've had to remind myself not to interrupt or correct, and that the length of the narration is not the point. There is not one right narration. These are all good things for me to remember.

After the narrating, it is then helpful to share comments or details. "You can ask questions, correct misinformation, and ask for clarification at this point. However, avoid being overly critical. Limit what you say to a few important points". I think this is very important! This is where we can get overly critical and give way too much advice for improvement, which causes are dc to feel they are not "doing it right" or are "bad at narrating". I try to give at least a few praises, and just one thing for the child to improve on. Then, the next time, I gently remind them of the "one thing" I'm looking for. Here is a post where I tried to explain this...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7792&p=56808

The section "Other Helpful Narrating Tips" has had some great ideas for helping dc learn to narrate well. The first one "Be patient with your child" is actually the hardest one for me. I especially had a hard time going back to teaching how to narrate to my middle ds, as I'd gotten used to my oldest ds's narrations. I'd forgotten how long it took for him to grow into orally narrating well. Teaching them to listen - or read - carefully is key.

Other ideas CM had were to shorten the amount dc are narrating upon. Modeling narration is important to do too. Beyond Little Hearts and Bigger Hearts has great ideas for modeling narration, but if dc didn't do those guides and they are newer to narrating, then you may need to do more modeling for them. I like the "I need a little help" sign one. I start narrating, and then pass the "I need a little help" sticky note to my ds. He then narrates what happened next, and passes the sticky note back to me when he needs some help. We do this back and forth until the narration is done. Another good idea is to just model a good narration for the first half of the reading, and let your dd pick up to finish it out. This isn't the time to wow her with a really long detailed narration, but rather to be short, use a correct order of events, and show a little personality. This will loosen her up.

Here are some wonderful past threads about narration that I think you'd enjoy reading...
Narrating Skills
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4256

Narration Discussion and Examples:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8118&p=60893#p60893

Philosophy Behind Narration Skills:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8918


I hope something here helps, but just remember, oral narration is something dc will work on allllllll the way through homeschooling. It is a tough skill that takes a long time to do well. The best thing we can provide is encouragement, modeling, and one thing to work on at a time. They will move along in this skill given time! I do want to say that if dc are really struggling with simply understanding the books they are using, then they could be improperly placed, and either dropping down a guide or going half-speed with the current guide would be advised. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[cirons]

Thanks so much Julie....she did not do any previous guides so maybe modelling is a good way to go to give her some confidence and help her out for a while. My son doing Beyond really enjoys narrating with the taking turns and tapping each other on the shoulder so I might try that with her and see if that makes it less intense for her.....I know some of the books are more challenging than she is used to reading in her spare time, but I think she gets them enough to get the gist, iykwim.
I appreciate the time you took to help me out with suggestions! Always good to be reminded about the awesome helpful info that is also in the guide for me too!
Blessings,
Corrie

[LindaOz]

Hi Corrie,

Something I have found useful when working with a child on developing narration skills is that *I* would start narrating, then I would stop part way through a sentence and let the child fill in a word or two. Then I would pick up the story line myself and continue for a bit more, with more stops for them to fill in on the way. I don't know if this is totally CM but I found it very effective as it wasn't long until my new narrators would carry on the story after I stopped, filling in more and more of the detail themselves. The few words soon grew into sentences, and narration really took hold.

HTH

[cirons]

Great! Thanks Linda....I will give that a go also!
Bless ya,
Corrie

[holdinon]

I just wanted to encourage you. It will come. My oldest was 10 when we began HOD (she also started in Preparing). She could do the "work" (the written parts) with no trouble, but it took her quite a while to get the hang of the "reading and talking" stuff. I think part of it was that we had come from more traditional background. If she did not have a pencil in hand, she didn't really think she was doing school. So I think it was hard to make the connection of WHY she had to narrate. She told me that it is much more difficult for her to narrate a read aloud book than one she has read independently. (I can tell this in her narrations even now). She feels "weird" telling me about something I just read. It comes more natural to her to tell me about the things she has read on her own (that presumably I have not). Which makes sense, I guess.

Anyway, she came a LONG way throughout those first 10 weeks or so. But once she got the hang of it, it wasn't nearly so bad. My other kids (who started in the younger guides, haven't had nearly as much trouble getting the hang of it--although some just seem to have a more natural ability, some have to "stretch" for it )
Angie

[cirons]

She told me that it is much more difficult for her to narrate a read aloud book than one she has read independently. (I can tell this in her narrations even now). She feels "weird" telling me about something I just read. It comes more natural to her to tell me about the things she has read on her own (that presumably I have not).

Good point Angie! I had not realised this before but I think my daughter is the same! When she reads the independent history, she narrates with a lot more confidence and enthusiasm because she is excited to 'tell me all about it' because I have not read it and don't know what is going on. But when I have read it aloud, she is a lot more tentative to try and 'get it right' in front of me maybe because I know what has gone on. I have said to her so many times there is no right and wrong, I have showed her Carrie's narration tips where it says this also, but maybe I just need to be more patient, the answer to oh so many of my problems!!! Lol.