Baby Steps in Writing

For many years, I have tried various writing programs until finally reaching the same conclusion as Charlotte Mason. Oral narration is the foundation of written narration. You will know when the child is ready to make the transition. Pamela is not quite ready, so I have backed off from encouraging written narrations. She did two things today that gave me hope for seeing them down the road. First, in our reading from a book about space, Pamela pointed to the word supernovae and announced, "It's a mistake!" I wasn't quite sure what she meant so I pressed for clarity. She added, "It's s, not e!" Suddenly, I realized that Pamela expected the plural of the word supernova to be supernovas. She wanted to share that mistake with me as a mutual joke. However, I turned it into a short grammar lesson explaining that, in Latin, plurals do not end in the letter s. They end in vowels like e. Second, she decided to do a combination of oral and written narration of her books today. While you might struggle to understand what she communicates in between doodles, these two pictures illustrate what we studied this morning.

Oh, if you look carefully, you see clear evidence of her firm understanding of personal pronouns which becomes more refined as Pamela's sense of self continues to emerge.