retelling stories

[MomtoJGJE]

Why oh why are we at the end of Beyond and Jayden is STILL answering questions about the Emerging readers like this

me: "what did Pa and the cowboys discuss... discuss means talk about"
Jayden: "oh they talked about stuff and all that"

[6ducks7to17]

Lora,
I have a few questions/thoughts for you about your son's narration struggles. (I have on my Pediatric Occupational Therapy cap on as well as my Mom of 6 cap.) How does your son do at "narrating" daily events, i.e., a birthday party, special time with dad, a fishing trip, playting with a friend, or simple things like, "Tell Dad what we did this morning." etc? From your brief post, it sounds like he uses a lot of "stuff words" rather than specific discriptions. Does he do this throughout the day? Boys tend to use "stuff words" more than girls and for a longer period of time. There are many things we can and should be doing to help them over the "stuff word" phase. Some folks have persisting word finding issues of varying degrees. How does he do if you show him a picture from the story to prime the pump and ask something like, "Tell me what's happening in this picture?" or "What do you see in this picture?", then "What are they doing?" "Then what happened?" Sometimes it helps if you have your child draw their favorite part of the story and then tell you about it. He may still be concentrating on the machanics of reading so that his comprehension and or retension is lower. I've heard that typically children aren't able to take in all the information they read for their own learning until about the fourth grade. How does he do narrating a short selection of what you read a-loud to him?
Hope these thoughts are helpful.
Cheryl

[MomtoJGJE]

Well, she's a girl (don't worry, it is the boy spelling) but she can tell what she wants to tell with no problems... like narrating events (except she's gotten to the age of "how did the morning at church go?" "fine..." "what did you do?" "nothing...") It's just annoying that I STILL have to probe to get her to tell the point of the reading (no matter if I read it or if she reads it or if someone else reads it) And it doesn't matter if we do that stuff first, middle, or last.... She just doesn't care for those sections of school, and instead of answering quickly and correctly to make it go faster she dawdles around and goofs off.

It's the same with pictures or anything else, too.... she just doesn't care and doesn't want to do it, so she just tries to not do it.

[my3sons]

Lora Beth - Many a moms have turned grey over teaching narrating skills! Just kidding! It is truly a process though that takes its own sweet t-i-m-e. It is tough to be patient. Patience is NOT my strongest virtue, as I was reminded when I began oral narrations with our 6 yo in Beyond, and then also in Bigger Hearts. It helped me a LOT to read back over the "Narration Tips: Teacher's List" in the Appendix of Bigger Hearts. I needed to hear a lot of those tips again. For example, I'd stopped introducing the section being read, I'd been forgetting to remind my ds he'd be narrating before I started the reading, I'd even reread the reading when he didn't give me the narration "I" wanted, and I'd defined words for him within the reading. These are all "tips" I was in error in doing, and those are just the ones "Before narrating". I also had gotten picky, asked too many questions, picked too long of sections to be narrated upon... well the list could go on... let's just say I was single-handedly undermining my ds's ability to narrate and coloring his attitude toward it in the process. So, my very first and best advice would be to read the "Narration Tips: Teacher's List" again very carefully and adhere to its advice.

My second tip would be to go over the "Student's List" with your child, and explain that this was the purpose of narrating. You can let her know that you will be sticking to your list, and she will be sticking to her list, but that this is not meant to be a chore - it's meant to be a personal retelling of what was read. I'd also limit the section she's narrating on and have her narrate right away on it (i.e. 1 page, have her narrate, then read the rest to her and model a brief narration of your own on the rest).

When you model narration, it's important to do so with enthusiasm and to keep it brief at first, so a child sees it as attainable. CM's comments about teaching narration were often directed to the teacher with a direction to "listen completely and enthusiastically with not only your ears but also your face". I try to remember not to be doing other things or look distanced when my dc are giving their narrations, but instead to give my full attention as enthusiastically as I can. So, limit yourself to one correction said briefly at the end, and make sure to compliment her on something she did do well. My new favorite phrase is one of Karen Andreola's "No balking allowed!" That is also some good advice if poor attitudes have developed. I hope something here helps!

In Christ,
Julie

[MomtoJGJE]

I don't have the Bigger guide... this is the Emerging readers questions in the Beyond guide. During storytime, if she is anywhere close to what the book is actually talking about I just let her talk... I might say something like "well, did they x or y?... tell me about it..."

[MomtoJGJE]

Also, just to add, I don't think either of us is doing anything "wrong".... it's just frustrating.

[my3sons]

I don't have the Bigger guide... this is the Emerging readers questions in the Beyond guide. During storytime, if she is anywhere close to what the book is actually talking about I just let her talk... I might say something like "well, did they x or y?... tell me about it..."

Oh, thanks for sharing that! I remember having to talk with one of my ds's about not using such general words like "stuff" too. He finally grew to understand that if he used words like "stuff" or "things", that he'd need to add more to his answers. I just want to encourage you that this does improve! I'm glad you have the Beyond guide, because the Storytime box does a super job of helping teach how to retell stories well. Just continuing to do those helps throughout the year really did help my dc continue to improve, and I bet they will for your ds too! I even continued some of those helps at the start of Bigger Hearts because my middle ds still needed them at that point. I was thinking you were doing Bigger Hearts (I guess I have it on the brain ) and I personally was doing some things wrong with narrations at that point that truly did make it not go well for my dc. I was not trying to say you are doing anything wrong - just trying to share my experience with narrating that I found out the hard way that all of those little things really do make a big difference in how it goes. I am sure your ds's narrations will improve with time - I know it can be frustrating - but it is such a great skill to have it is worth working through!

Oh, and I had one other thought. It made a big difference for my dc to understand that the oral narration was how I was checking if they understood what was read. We had a talk about how there are many ways to check for understanding - quizzes, tests, one page daily written book reports, one page written summaries, etc. But that I chose oral narrations for this purpose instead, because of the many benefits of this skill over time (as it's a skill we use as adults nearly every day), and also with the hope that not doing all of that writing or testing would help him orally be able to think of his answers and focus on just that instead. If your ds is a typical boy and doesn't love writing a lot each day, this may be a timely explanation for him as it was for one of my sons especially.

In Christ,
Julie

[MomtoJGJE]

I do need to explain to her why I'm asking these questions other than just "they are in the guide" which is what I'm sure she's thinking....

She really does like writing... maybe I could have her write then answers some times? I think she'd probably like that... not every day, but once a week maybe.

I wasn't saying you were telling me I was doing something wrong, I probably *am* but I feel like it would be the same no matter what I do... She's a teenager in a 7yo body.

Thanks for all the thoughts!!

[kiloyd]

I could call you and read you the narration tips. I had to re-read them many times this year.

katherine

[Matt'sMom]

We seem to have the problem that Cheryl addressed earlier in this post. The problem with finding words. My ds, 10, has just been diagnosed with Expressive Language Disorder. This does help explain why he gets so uptight at the mere mention of oral narration. He really can not do it. I will say that I have seen slow improvement but we are still in the one to two sentence answer mode. I saw that Cheryl was wearing her Occupational Therapist hat and just wondered if their were others out there that could help some of us that really have learning difficulites related to this area. Right now we are not able to get Matthew any help in this area because our insurance willl not cover the therapy that would help him be able to express himself better.

Thanks,

Durea