As promised, I'm here to offer a brief introduction to narration. I feel like it's such a tricky thing to talk about. Because on one hand, it's so very simple and I don't want it to sound anymore complicated than it is. But on the other hand, there is so much to be said and I know I could never adequately cover it all.
Narration is so very simple. You read a story and then you say, "Can you tell me back what we just read?" The child then tells the story back again. It is such a simple, powerful tool.
We started practicing narration this summer in preparation for this school year. I had heard from a few different places that Aesop's fables were a great starting point. They're short (so they're easier to remember) and they tell complete stories (so it's much easier for a child to figure out what to tell).
After we finished reading it, I asked my daughter to tell the story back to me. And let me just paint an accurate picture for you: she absolutely hated it. She fought me very hard and in no way wanted to do it. I wasn't surprised by this. I know my daughter's personality. And I'd heard of this happening from others.
Let me just pause right here and let you in on a secret. Narration is really hard - especially if you've never done it before. Right after I started doing it with my daughter, I started doing it for myself. I've always struggled to listen to Audiobooks. I used to say it was because I wasn't an auditory learner. Now, I've had to admit that it's really that I lack that "Habit of Attention." My mind wanders and I don't take any control over it.
So I started listening to a couple Audiobooks (You were wondering how I manage to read all those books in the sidebar and clean my house, weren't you?). In the beginning, I paused the recording after every 5 minutes and made myself tell back what I had heard.
Guess what! It works. And now I can get my house clean and my reading done at the same time. I'm so thankful.
Why does it work? I think there are a lot of reasons, but there are 3 that come to mind for me. First of all, starting with short sections is really vital. From the beginning I could pay attention for a short time. I've had to work to discipline my mind to keep paying attention. Setting the clock for 5 minutes gave me a manageable goal. Surely I can pay attention for 5 minutes at my age!! As I've continued to work on it, I've been able to lengthen that time.
Second, knowing that I was going to have to narrate helped me force my mind to pay attention. That accountability is vital. I've noticed that every time I start a new book I still have to work a bit harder in the beginning. But once I get into the book, I don't struggle nearly as much.
The third reason starts to get into the power of narration itself. There's a quote I remember from a student in one of Charlotte Mason's PNEU schools. She said, "We narrate and then we know." I've found that to be so true. If all I do is just listen to the reading and then go onto the next thing, most of what I heard dissipates. But if I force myself to stop and process it in some way, it stays with me. I've been listening to Northanger Abbey on Audiobook. I started the book weeks ago (forcing myself to read this novel slowly). But I can still tell you what happened in each chapter. It's taking up residence in a deeper part of my soul.
Of course the same is true whether I read the words on a page or listen to the Audiobook. We have to stop and process the information somehow. This is something humans do naturally. Stop and think about the things that excite you the most. What's something you've learned and felt a passion for? Did you keep it to yourself? No, you went and found the next soul (willing or not) to tell all about it. And what happens after you tell something a few times? You know it.
So what did I tell my daughter when she didn't understand why she had to do this whole narration thing? I told her it was practice for telling stories (because it is). A fancy term for narration is "Oral Composition." Eventually, my daughter will be writing some of her narrations down. She will get all kinds of practice with Written Composition. But she's currently 6 years old. That means that her writing skills are in no way matched with her composition skills.
And this is why I love Charlotte Mason (Okay, it's not just this). My daughter is getting an education and grappling with big ideas - because she is perfectly capable of that. She doesn't have to wait until her fine motor skills catch up or her grammar knowledge increases.
There's so much more I could say here. In a future post, I'm going to talk about how I take my daughter's narrations and turn them into opportunities for character development and relationship building.
In the meantime, here's some more from the experts:
- This links directly to Charlotte Mason's short chapter on narration in her first book.
- This is a very helpful and practical guide to narration.
- Six Steps to the Narration Sequence
- Karen Glass is amazing.
- Why you should never re-read the passage (because the habit of paying attention is crucial):
- A more thorough discussion of the single reading
- This is an article from 1924 written by someone who taught in the PNEU Schools that Charlotte Mason started.
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