I have been using AO for just the enrichment type subjects this last year so my daughter (year 4) is in a similar situation of learning how to narrate orally. She is doing really well with that. I am currently reading Know and Tell and have decided to start her next year with one writing narration per week in Term 1, the we will increase to two for Term 2 and 3. We will see how that goes. New subscriber by the way! 😊 Mom of 3, but only 4th grader is school age.
That seems like a solid plan! Know and Tell is going to give you the confidence to start written narration, and I think it’s a great idea to let her finish this year practicing just oral narration. We’ll also be at one weekly narration per week at the beginning of year 5 and I’ll probably aim to up it to 2 at some point as well.
The notebook in this video is from Juniper Pines, a company owned by a fellow homeschooling family! I customized the front wording, but they have one that says “written narrations”. While these are cute and a nice size, it’d be just as functional to use a wide ruled notebook instead and have that be where all written narrations go.
Do you do oral and/or written narrations with every book read, or do you just pick one or two? For example I read a history book, then have my kids narration, then later if we do a literature novel do I have them in narrate again.
Good question. We aim to orally narrate every scheduled reading, so with Ambleside Online for us that’s about 2 oral narrations per day with my year 1, 2-3/day with my year 3, and 3-4 oral narrations per day for my year 4. It’s mentally tiring for them, much more so than just listening. As we add in one written narration per week for my year 4, he will keep doing mostly all oral narrations but just pick one to write per week instead. Oral narration will continue alongside written narrations all the way till they graduate. One thing I’m considering is to decrease how many scheduled reads my year 4 does per day or not require narrations from all the scheduled reads because it is just a lot for him and only going to increase as he gets older. Not sure what we’ll do yet. We do not narrate any “free reads” or “family read alouds”.
I have been using AO for just the enrichment type subjects this last year so my daughter (year 4) is in a similar situation of learning how to narrate orally. She is doing really well with that. I am currently reading Know and Tell and have decided to start her next year with one writing narration per week in Term 1, the we will increase to two for Term 2 and 3. We will see how that goes. New subscriber by the way! 😊 Mom of 3, but only 4th grader is school age.
That seems like a solid plan! Know and Tell is going to give you the confidence to start written narration, and I think it’s a great idea to let her finish this year practicing just oral narration. We’ll also be at one weekly narration per week at the beginning of year 5 and I’ll probably aim to up it to 2 at some point as well.
Great video! What are the notebooks you've used for narration?
The notebook in this video is from Juniper Pines, a company owned by a fellow homeschooling family! I customized the front wording, but they have one that says “written narrations”. While these are cute and a nice size, it’d be just as functional to use a wide ruled notebook instead and have that be where all written narrations go.
Do you do oral and/or written narrations with every book read, or do you just pick one or two? For example I read a history book, then have my kids narration, then later if we do a literature novel do I have them in narrate again.
Good question. We aim to orally narrate every scheduled reading, so with Ambleside Online for us that’s about 2 oral narrations per day with my year 1, 2-3/day with my year 3, and 3-4 oral narrations per day for my year 4. It’s mentally tiring for them, much more so than just listening. As we add in one written narration per week for my year 4, he will keep doing mostly all oral narrations but just pick one to write per week instead. Oral narration will continue alongside written narrations all the way till they graduate. One thing I’m considering is to decrease how many scheduled reads my year 4 does per day or not require narrations from all the scheduled reads because it is just a lot for him and only going to increase as he gets older. Not sure what we’ll do yet. We do not narrate any “free reads” or “family read alouds”.