Wrapping Up Written Narration of One Chapter

Foreword!

Pamela is a paradox! She can read and somewhat understand books at a 5th/6th grade level of reading. She may not "get" every little nuance, but she understands enough to make reading at that level worth her while. (Think about how Helen Keller delighted in reading books above her head, but within reach). So, we are reading Miracles on Maple Hill plus some history plus some other pleasure books, all at about that level to practice oral narration. The purpose of the graphic organizers is to scaffold Pamela in organizing material and typing narrations for Miracles on Maple Hill and some history readings (a post for another day).

The purpose of the "impertinent" questions and answers I do during readings, which are not part of a typical Charlotte Mason philosophy, is to practice syntax in Pamela's speech therapy program. She has syntactic aphasia, so her expressive language is probably at a 1st/2nd grade level. The Reading Milestones primers (not the workbooks) are PERFECT for speech therapy ala the association method because they are syntax controlled. She does not need vocabulary-controlled primers; like deaf children, she needs syntax-controlled ones for acquiring correct syntax.

Finally!

Last year, I attended a talk by Jennifer Spencer in which she explained her thesis for her master's degree about retelling. She recommended using graphic organizers to help children organize their thoughts before writing. Jennifer did another presentation called "Developmentally Appropriate Use of Narration." I was disappointed to miss it because we presented at the same time. From what I understand she discussed graphic organizers in greater detail. ChildLightUSA just posted the audio file for the one I missed.

This series of posts cover blending Charlotte Mason, the association method, and Relationship Development Intervention with reading, orally narrating, graphic organizers, syntax practice, and writing. I have spent almost a month for me to digest and record it. I have described how we worked through Chapter 3 of Miracles on Maple Hill. The last post covers how we organize the graphic organizers and type a written narration. If you are a new reader, the following links takes you through what I have already covered!

Before a Reading:
Prediction

Asking Questions

During a Reading:
Setting




Answering Questions

Collecting Information

Before a Typed Narration:
Before I sat down with Pamela, I organized all of the graphic organizers and made two main idea/details concept webs with the diagram feature of Microsoft Word. Because the story introduced only one new character, I did not make a concept web for that. I guided Pamela in filling out these webs from memory. I avoid letting her review the graphic organizers because I want to spotlight relying on memory of earlier readings. After we completed the setting concept web, she typed up her written narration. She did not review the graphic organizers before or during the typed narration.


Setting:


Mice:


Fritz:


Pamela's Typed Narration
(No Corrections):

The downstairs had the kitchen, and dining room. The upstairs had three bedrooms. Outside had some trees, grass, and melted snow.

The kitchen had a bath. It had some some chairs. It had a table. It had a drawer with spoons, folks, and knives. It had some dishes.

Bedroom had some pillows. It had some blankets. It had some window. It had some doors. It had some floors with walls.

The mice are dirty, and ugly. The mice feel bad. The mice had some old noses, dirty bodies, short tails, and short ears. The mice made a mess. It made squeaks.

Dad wanted to get rid of the mice. Marley kept the mice. The mice are crawling in the house. The mice had some babies.

Friz is a man. He had some children. They drove to the sugar camp. The suger camp is pretty. It had some hot pots. It had some syrups. It had some trees, too. It had some snow. They feel happy.

Prediction Graphic Organizers--Homegrown and Otherwise!

Happy Tenth Birthday, Hannah!!! (Hannah's mom Sonya is the Charlotte Mason momma who's website first got me interested in RDI.)

Yesterday, I promised to share how we do predictions in a story. Before reading the next chapter of a book, we recall any dangling problems. We fill out a prediction graphic organizer like the one below. The video clip shows Pamela and I discussing the problem that came to light in Chapter 3 of Miracles on Maple Hill and filling out the sheet:




Chapter 4 held the answer to the problem, posted below in case you lost sleep over Marly's poor mice!


Sometimes, the problem occurs in the middle of the reading. If it is an over-arching problem, I hold off filling out the sheet until the next chapter because I can lead off the chapter with the unsolved problem. I also preview the chapter in the morning to figure out what graphic organizers to use. Today, I realized the first three pages of Chapter 5 had four separate little problems (more like daily annoyances). Pamela ended up filling out the following four organizers and we worked on sorting relevant versus irrelevant information.


For every story in the Reading Milestones primers, I have Pamela make a prediction for every single story in the book before she ever cracks the book open. She spends the first day of a new primer identifying potential problems and solutions for all six stories. I make up the graphic organizer show below in Excel. We read one story per day, and, at the end of a story, she records the actual problem and solution and assesses her prediction.

Hearing Journey Bunny Story

Random Thoughts:

• Thanks to Queen Mum, we might be receiving some money for RDI therapy! See if you have any missing money!
• David's youth group made the paper for fixing up the trailer of a needy elderly lady in town: picture and story. Somehow, David evaded the reporter, but I told him to keep Matthew 6:1-4 in mind!
• I cracked up reading Thurber's opinion of Freud in one of our AmblesideOnline--which has a new look--books The Thurber Carnival. If I post the title of the essay, I might lose my blog's G-rating, so you can read the chapter here!
• My fingers are tired from crocheting some baby surprises for friends with child. My niece is due on November 11, but we are not sure what that makes me. I am her aunt, but I have no idea what that makes me to her child.
• Two exciting movies are coming soon: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and Prince Caspian!
• Yesterday, Pamela and I sat on our sunny, delightful back porch rockers, doing school work. We loved seeing all of our feathered friends in action: a brilliant male Northern Cardinal, Northern Mockingbird, a House Finch husband and wife team at the bird bath, two feisty Bluejays, a flock of Chipping Sparrows, noisy American Crows, Common Grackles galore, and a Carolina Wren (FINALLY).
• Pamela's latest self-imposed research project is on time zones. She is learning all of the time zones of all fifty states. She does understand what they mean, too!

Back to the Bunny Story:
Awhile back, my friend Queen Mum told me about Hearing Journey, a website for people with cochlear implants that provides free weekly and monthly activities. I have gotten so much mileage. While I rarely use the resources as suggested, I definitely find them useful. One of our favorite activities the site posts in the preschool section from time to time are wordless books. I cut them up into cards, and we flip through the cards. Before showing her one card, we play a guessing game until she guesses the topics. I usually give her a couple of clues. Then, I show her the first card, which she narrates. Before flipping to the next card, she has to guess what might happen next. Every book has six pages.

Before Easter, we read a story about a bunny. I posted a picture here because the activity is no longer available (TIP: Download the ones with potential so you can do them when time permits). The funny thing was Pamela thought the bunny had injured its foot and needed to see a doctor. She did not realize until near the end that the bunny's foot was dirty. I am including a video clip per page because we both enjoyed this experience with many wonderfully warm moments. If your time is limited, page four was the highlight, heart-warming, tissue moment for me!

Page 1 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 2 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 3 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 4 of the Wordless Bunny Book
My Numero Uno Favorite Clip!!!!!


Page 5 of the Wordless Bunny Book


Page 6 of the Wordless Bunny Book

Collecting Information

I am trying to be complete in my coverage of Pamela's reading, oral narration, graphic organizers, and written narration of Chapter 3 of Miracles on Maple Hill. Here is a quick recap: before reading one word from this chapter, we reviewed and recalled earlier readings by having Pamela ask her own questions. Then, we did our typical language arts cycle and Pamela filled out some setting sheets.

In this session, Pamela started off by working on another graphic organizer for setting, pictured below and covered in the video clip below the picture. Earlier in this session, we reviewed and recalled the previous reading. I edited out the redirection I gave Pamela because I posted it elsewhere. Out of thirty minutes of recording, I spent three minutes redirecting her. She rarely does this and I think two things threw her off: (1) her dad worked at home that day and (2) he spent about ten minutes drumming (yes, rock and roll band drums) at the other end of the house!




Then, we transitioned to a fact sheet about mice, pictured below and shown in the recording below that.

What to Do BEFORE a Reading

We're back from a busy week, and I hope to wrap up the stuff I have on graphic organizers and narration. Today, Nicole Beurkens let me know that the Horizons Developmental Remediation Center will make a donation to the RDI Scholarship fund for every person who signs up to receive their free weekly email newsletter. I can't argue with free and supporting a good cause!

Charlotte Mason recommended recalling the previous reading to get into a new reading. She said, "Let each new lesson be so interlaced with the last that the one must recall the other; that again, recalls the one before it, and so on to the beginning" (page 158). Research on learning confirms this because the brain has a better chance of storing new information (unknown) by linking to already stored information (known). She explained what to do before every reading,

In every case the reading should be consecutive from a well-chosen book. Before the reading for the day begins, the teacher should talk a little (and get the children to talk) about the last lesson, with a few words about what is to be read, in order that the children may be animated by expectation; but she should beware of explanation and, especially, of forestalling the narrative (pages 232-233).

In an earlier post, Pamela filled out a graphic organizer that encouraged her to reflect upon the reading and ask herself questions. This is another way to help link a previous reading to the next section. The picture below shows what she wrote and the video clip shows how we did it.



Answering Her Own Question

Blending Therapies with Graphic Organizers

To recap my last post on how Pamela and I read books, we begin a reading by recalling the last one: (1) thinking about the known and asking questions about the unknown, (2) reading the title and predicting the problem, or (3) narrating the previous reading. After that, Pamela is ready to read several pages from a chapter book. Keeping in mind the zone of proximal development, we rarely read an entire chapter in one sitting.

This time I printed out sheets on setting from an ebook of graphic organizers (you can also try making your own in Word or downloaded free ones). I needed three sheets to cover the chapter: downstairs, upstairs, and outside.

Downstairs:


Upstairs:


Outside:


When we read and narrate books, we cycle from one method to another. First, she reads half a page, closes the book, and narrates what she remembers orally (Charlotte Mason). Then, I open the book and ask her questions with the page in view to practice syntax (the association method). After that, we shift to the graphic organizer for Pamela to record her ideas. Then, we cycle back to reading the book until we make it through our goal for the day. In all activities, I encourage her with a warm, playful attitude and dialog as we figure out what needs to go on the sheet.

The following clip illustrates one day's worth of reading and narrations. I did edit as much as I could, but, since I know parents of struggling narrators (especially autistic kiddos) have asked about how you narrate with someone still learning English as a first language. The clip lasts fourteen minutes, but I did add titles throughout it to explain the method behind the madness.

Asking Questions before a Reading

Pamela and I have worked years for her to be ready to write her own narrations. Thanks to the association method, she has stockpiled enough syntax to form simple sentences. Last summer, I began easing her into written narrations by making sentence strips based upon her oral narration. Now, as recommended by Jennifer Spencer in a presentation at last year's Charlotte Mason Conference, I am using graphic organizers to help her organize her ideas before she writes. In this post, I will cover one of several we review before a reading. I have three sources for graphic organizers: (1) I make my own in Word with the diagram feature, (2) I read through an e-book I purchased online, and (3) I print out free ones.

Charlotte Mason believed that my part, as an educator, is to look over the day's work in advance and "see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford" (page 180). Today, Pamela started Chapter 3 of Miracles on Maple Hill. At the beginning of every chapter, I try to find a graphic organizer to help her get back into the plot. In this case, I chose one in which the student writes what is known and asks questions about what is unknown. Charlotte believed that children ought to come up with their own questions when reading (page 181),

Let the pupil write for himself half a dozen questions which cover the passage studied; he need not write the answers if he be taught that the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind to itself.

In the story, the protagonist, Marly, is a little girl whose father is grieving his experience as a soldier and prisoner of war in World War II. The family decides to move to the country to farm and fix up her deceased great grandmother's old abandoned house in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania. At the beginning of the chapter, Marly enters the neglected house for the first time. We left one column empty because we hope the book will answer these questions. Having previewed the chapter, I know she will be able to answer the third question after she finishes Chapter 3.


In the video clip, you can see us in action. I edited portions of the clip in which Pamela was writing and added titles to spotlight what we are doing. The first obvious thing is how much Pamela references me both verbally and nonverbally! Second, I try to rely on declarative language as much as possible, even when redirecting her when she misses the mark. One thing to keep in mind is that open-ended questions with no right or wrong answers are declarative if she willingly offers an answer. Third, she pays attention to nonverbal cues when I use my gasp and face to point out a missing question mark. I plan to follow-up with more posts and clips about how we blend graphic organizers, Charlotte Mason, the association method, and RDI to teach Pamela written narration.

Preparing for Literacy

I am so excited I feel a victory lap coming on! This is the last post about Chapter 2 of Awakening Children's Minds. Plus, I have finished half of my first presentation for the Charlotte Mason Conference from June 11-14, 2008. Boiling Springs or bust! Be there or be square!

I prepared my children for literacy without even thinking about it or trying. My children saw my husband and I reading, typing on the computer, writing Christmas cards, etc. I took a label maker and made labels for everything in Pamela's room. I did not actively teach her to read them but thought it educational to have them there. We always had plenty of books in the house for adults and children, supplemented by trips to the library. I read aloud picture books to the children before bedtime. Both of them taught themselves to sight read in very different ways!

Pamela has always loved videos. We put them up in the closet so that she would have to tell us which one she wanted. That caused major tantrums sometimes, but she did pick up words that way. In fact, she picked up sight words that way, unbeknownst to me. One day, when she was five years old, I noticed her matching video cassettes to video cassette boxes. What surprised me was that she could match the right video to the right box, even if the video cassette featured only words. So, I wrote down the names of different video titles on a piece of paper and she read them to me! This was my very language-deficient, autistic child reading, and I did not lift a finger.

When David was two years old, we bought him a wooden alphabet puzzle for Christmas. He taught himself his alphabet by holding up a piece and asking, "Wha' dis?" I began homeschooling Pamela when David was three-years old. Since he was so young and wiggly and active, I let him be a la masterly inactivity and focused my efforts on Pamela. Again, unbeknownst to me, while I was working with Pamela, he sometimes stayed busy typing Dr. Seuss books into computer software that highlighted each word and read it aloud. By the time he turned four, he was reading simple picture books, and I did not lift a finger.

So, when I read the following quote by Laura Berk, my response was, "Well, DUH!"

Children can become competent readers and writers without being trained, pushed, or goaded into literacy learning in early childhood . . . Young children are enthusiastic and self-confident about learning and who achieve at their best in the early grades have acquired literacy-relevant knowledge informally--through exposure to books and other reading materials at home, in preschoool, and in child-care environments; through observing adults reading and writing in everyday life; and especially through narrative conversation (page 62).

Here are three points Charlotte Mason made about emerging literacy that dovetail nicely:

• "Reading presents itself first amongst the lessons to be used as instruments of education, although it is open to discussion whether the child should acquire the art unconsciously, from his infancy upwards, or whether the effort should be deferred until he is, say, six or seven, and then made with vigour" (Page 199).
• "But, as a matter of fact, few of us can recollect how or when we learned to read: for all we know, it came by nature, like the art of running; and not only so, but often mothers of the educated classes do not know how their children learned to read. 'Oh, he taught himself,' is all the account his mother can give of little Dick's proficiency" (Page 200).
• "Let the child alone, and he will learn the alphabet for himself: but few mothers can resist the pleasure of teaching it; and there is no reason why they should, for this kind of learning is no more than play to the child, and if the alphabet be taught to the little student, his appreciation of both form and sound will be cultivated. When should he begin? Whenever his box of letters begins to interest him. The baby of two will often be able to name half a dozen letters; and there is nothing against it so long as the finding and naming of letters is a game to him" (Page 201-202).

Clearly, children do reach an age in which educators will begin reading instruction for those who have not already picked it up. Charlotte Mason recommends not earlier than six years old. However, drilling very young children who are not in the zone for literacy destroys interest in reading.

I have found many parallels between the writings of Laura Berk and Charlotte Mason, but the section on dialogic reading with preschool- and Kindergarten-aged children contains major differences! Laura recommends that the adult select picture books with limited text to allow the child to become the storyteller. Charlotte Mason did not require any narrations of a child that young but listened to any freely offered. She preferred literature with "tales of the imagination, scenes laid in other langs and other times, heroic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, delicious fairy tales" (page 152). Laura believes that "adult behavior--warmth, dramatic quality, and attempts to get the child to participate actively" (page 63) fosters attention, while Charlotte believed that living books read in short lessons captured attention. In fact, she warned against the "dangers of personal magnetism" in a Kindergarten teacher:

No other personality out of book, picture, or song, no not even that of Nature herself, can get at the childeren without the mediation of the teacher. No room is left for spontaneity or personal initiation on their part (page 188).

On which side of the issue do I fall? I end up doing both, based upon my objectives. When Pamela reads living books for the purpose of comprehension, learning, and narration, I go with a Charlotte Mason perspective, "We narrate, and then we know." However, when we are working on our relationship objectives or the association method for her language issues, we follow the dialogic reading described by Laura Berk.

Reinventing the Wheel in Reading

Since starting the new schedule with Pamela, we have been working hard on what I have called "guided reading." To my dismay (or perhaps, delight), several people have already written several books by that name! I try to avoid buying books for the sake of buying them, especially brand-spanking new ones. Whenever I hear of a must-buy read, I always search eBay and Best Web Buys for a used copy for about six months before splurging on a new one. Last night, I Snoopy danced because I won an ebay auction for the RDI DVD for only $41 including shipping. I hope it is not scratched, and I do not know if it is the latest and greatest in the RDI world, but I do not plan to burst my bubble until the very last moment possible. Because I am a ditz who loves coffee and manages to make every book I touch look trashed, I try to avoid borrowing copies of anything from a friend.

My plan today is to share what Pamela and I are doing in my version of guided reading (or should I say connected reading or modeled reading). I hope that some helpful soul who has already read either Guided Reading (for K-3) or Guided Reading (Grades 3-6) can tell me if it is something worth putting on my must-buy list.

Here is what we do when reading a book:

Preview the Chapter - We preview the chapter in many ways:

* We look at the title and pictures to guess what might be happening. I try to use declarative language like "I wonder what this means" or "I wonder what happened to so-and-so."

* We also recall what we read previously to get our minds into the book. I try to use declarative language like "Yesterday's chapter was exciting because . . ." I also try to be less competent (as recommended by my friend Mary) and start recalling bits of the chapter, hoping Pamela will rescue me!

* If the book has a map and location is important, we study the map to refresh our minds. We sometimes consult our well-worn atlas that I bought for two bucks at a used book sale. For a new book, we might even talk about other characters (real or imaginary) who lived in that place and time.

* If I know in advance we are covering completely unfamiliar territory, I try to think of a mental bridge. For example, in The Winged Watchman, I thought connecting the landwatcher Leendert (a traitor who spied on his neighbors for the Nazis) to Rolf in The Sound of Music, a movie which Pamela loves. When we started The Brendan Voyage, I compared the book to Kon-Tiki because it is a story about five men on a very small boat crossing an ocean to make a point.

Reading Style - If Pamela reads a chapter by herself, she will probably recall about two sentences. Here is what we do to keep her mind focused:

* I select a short passage, half a page or a paragraph or two, depending upon the material.

* We skim the beginning, middle, and end of the passage for a keyword in each that might be important. She tells me what they are and I might have her choose a different word if the one chosen will derail her understanding by saying, "I think there is a better word."

* Usually, she reads silently, using her finger to help her eyes track the words.

* If the passage is primarily dialogue, we assign parts and read it aloud together with as much dramatic flair as we can muster.

* Sometimes, her mind is not on the material. How do I know? She tries to have a conversation with me while reading! I redirect her by saying, "It sure is hard to talk and read at the same time. How about starting over?"

Oral Narration - Oral narration is the backbone of a Charlotte Mason philosophy of education and I find it a great way to avoid getting too imperative. Instead of asking Pamela a ton of questions, I let her tell me what she knows:

* I let Pamela have one last glance of the passage and ask her if she is ready. I give her the sympathetic, expectant look Charlotte Mason recommended. During the narration, I do things to keep her alert to my facial expression.

* I close the book, and Pamela retells me what she remembers. I try not to interrupt her, except to correct the pronunciation of a word if it is word she will use often like the name of a character.

* If she forgot something, I remind her in a declarative way by saying, "I seem to remember something about a dog." If a few hints is not enough, I do not worry about it because often important information is repeated or can be inferred.

* If she starts to make a howler (something senseless that is often very funny), I change my facial expression to alert her to the fact that the train is heading off the tracks.

* If her narration is threadbare, then I might share what I remember. Or, I open the book and ask her questions ala the association method. Rather than focusing on the fact that she omitted information, I focus on it as an opportunity to practice syntax.

* If her narration is meaty, we move onto the next passage!

Modeling Thinking while Reading - Charlotte Mason emphasized that, while reading, the mind ought to put questions to itself and answer them while reading. Since we break up a chapter into small chunks, it offers the chance to reflect before plunging into the next passage. I try to work in questions and connections as we go:

* I ask predicting questions or opinion questions. I read somewhere that a question that has no right or wrong answer is more declarative. I will ask things like "What do you think will happen to so-and-so?" or "Who do you think is good/wicked/whatever?" or "Do think whatever will happen?"

* We try to make connections to other books or ourselves. I will say, "That reminds me of" a place or book and see if she fills in the connection. If not, we move on and linger on that thought at the end of the chapter.

Oral Recap of the Chapter - At the end of the reading for the day, we do a recap:

* We focus on the beginning, middle, and end of the entire passage.

* Pamela narrates the entire chapter. She usually narrations about ten or more sentences.

* I tape or film some of the narrations for the next step.

* We talk about connections and predictions for the next chapter.

Sentence Strips - Every day, Pamela does written narrations for two books. Because she is just learning to compose paragraphs, I added sentence strips (an idea suggested by Cheri Hedden). I type up her oral narrations into strips (mistakes and all), and Pamela works with them:

* Pamela organizes her strips, correcting any errors.

* She replaces repetitive nouns with pronouns for variety.

* She thinks of a better word for any word with strikethroughs (a hint to think of a more specific word).

* She fills in the blank. I usually leave blanks for adjectives or a prepositional phrase. If she says "So and so is happy", I tack "because ______________" at the end to prepare her for why questions down the road.

* I check her work and point out anything she overlooked.

* Then, I read her strips aloud very slowly as if I were reading the most wonderful piece of writing I ever saw.

Written Narration - I close up everything and Pamela narrates what she remembers. I make no corrections because it is a record of where she is at this moment in time. You can see some samples of her written narrations at her web page.

That Reminds Me of __________ Because . . .

Sometimes, related ideas take time to reveal their connections to me. In early June, I heard about a Go! Chart and the Charlotte Mason Conference and started implementing it immediately. It just hit me this week how the section of the chart in which we talk about what a story reminds us of is interrelated with trying to teach episodic memory ala Relationship Development Intervention.


On Tuesday, we worked with our Go! Chart. Pamela excels at tying a story into real-life situations, but not with other media (other stories, books, movies, songs, poems, etc.). The story was about a bird that fell out of its nest when the branch broke. A boy rescued the bird from a cat, hungering for a tasty morsel.

Sometimes, Pamela makes up real-life situations. In this case, Pamela says it reminds her of St. Cloud: we never saw a bird that fell out of a tree. Her flat face tells me she is inventing this yarn. I pointed toward the window and reminded her of a tree across the street from our house here in Carolina. The branch had broken and fallen to the ground. We found a baby chick and helped it get back on its feet and onto the grass, so it could hide and call for its mother. Notice how her face brightens at that memory! Then, I reminded her of the time a bird got into our house in Pennsylvania, which she remembers--I can tell by her lop-sided smile.

I tried to help her connect to literary memories by hinting about Dr. Seuss. However, she surpassed my expectations by remembering a Tennyson poem called A Cradle Song about a little birdie in a nest! In hindsight sharpened by the video clip, I pushed her to fast in trying to recall the poem. I wonder if it would have come to her had I shown more patience. Then, she remembered the book Are You My Mother? and started to stim, "You must", out of excitement and totally off topic.

Improving Reading Comprehension (Update #1)

I am starting to see the fruit of doing the reading comprehension model I described last month. We have applied the ideas I described for about three weeks. I will briefly recap each step. I place every sticky note on the appropriate spot in the Go! Chart! as we work. Sometimes, we break up this process over lunch, but she can do it all in one sitting (it helps that I let her choose where she wants to work):

(1) Study the title and picture. Predict what might happen in the story. I record her ideas on a sticky note.
(2) Read the word list found after the table of contents. Predict what might happen in the story. I record her ideas on a sticky note.
(3) Tell me what words support her predictions. I record these words on a sticky note.
(4) Read the story aloud.
(5) Read a question and answer script I wrote to maintain already mastered syntax because the primer's syntax is too simple. First, I read the questions, and she reads the answers. Next, we swap roles. Then, I ask the questions and she answers them without peeking at anything.
(6) We break up the story into beginning, middle, and end. We figure out one big picture idea for the beginning, middle, and end. I write her ideas on three separate sticky notes.
(7) Orally narrate the story while I film. While she does other things, I write the story on sticky notes, putting literal understanding on one note and interpretation on another. Some day, I will have her help me do this.
(8) She does her copywork, written narration, and dictation plus worksheet activities that belonging practice, comparative sentences, looking at a picture and writing her own questions and answers, syntax-focused questions, and sequencing pictures.
(9) We go back to her predictions. I read them and she tells me if they are true or false.
(10) She makes connections between the story and her life or other stories. I record them on a sticky note. The syntax is "__________ reminds me of __________ because . . ."
(11) While she works, I type up the original narration in Excel, one sentence per cell. I print it and cut it up into strips. I add blanks in sentences to "improve" them: adjectives, objects, prepositional phrases, etc. She sorts the strips by beginning, middle, and end. Then, she fills in the blanks and fixes any syntax mistakes. Finally, we make changes based upon order, such as using "a/an/some" when something is first mentioned and then going to "the" for all other references to it. Another improvement is we replace the subject with pronouns to avoid too much repetition. Basically, I model for her how to read your own writing and improve it. She has not internalized all of this as you will see, but I do see better narrations.
(12) Usually, I film her doing one final narration. This time I had her write her narration and here it is:


I asked Pamela to read her written narration aloud to me and you can bet I spotlighted it through the big smiles on my face, a cheery congratulations, and a hug. Later, her dad read the story aloud to her, while she watched him carefully. When he looked up at her and smiled as he read, Pamela's smile got wider and prouder. She clearly knew what a wonderful accomplishment this was.

Let me give you some comparisons. Pamela's narration contained sixteen sentences, and made only three minor syntax errors. All of her facts, sequencing, and inferences are accurate. Pamela wrote the following narration last month, the day before I left for the Charlotte Mason conference. While Pamela made no syntax errors, the sequencing in her narration did not match the actual story and the animals had been drinking water, not eating.


Back in 2004/2005, the children wrote in journals. Pamela did many "backdated" entries for fun. We had not worked on any verbs except for has/wants/sees/is/are. You can see how unsure she is about verbs and has some odd syntax. Her paragraphs are very short. Another sample entry to narrate one day in her life was, "Mommy is dropped of the dogs in Monks Corner. Mommy can picked up Daddy."

Improving Reading Comprehension (Reality)

I broke up Jennifer Spencer's breakout session entitled into three parts: Introduction, Model, and Reality. In the first two posts, I narrate her actual session, while, in this final post, I will describe how we are applying at home. The picture is my "Go Chart!" which I put on foamboard to make it extra sturdy since I lack a permanent spot for hanging it. I am test-driving it with David for his readings of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to prepare him for the book Deadliest Monster. I am finding it the most useful for Pamela. Up until now, all of her "narrations" have all been pure descriptions for we did not introduce the syntax of present tense verbs (singular) until recently. Now that she is comfortable with speaking in present tense, she is ready to narrate in the true sense of the word. I had been praying how to teach her the art of the narration and I am finding the Go! Chart invaluable. (Thank-you, Lord, for answered prayer!)



Every day, we focus on one very simple story from the syntax-controlled primers recommended by Dubard for the association method. While these are not living books, they are what Pamela needs to develop enough syntax to narrate living books. I see them as a bridge that helps her go from where she is to where I hope she will be. The first thing we do is to look at the story's words listed at the beginning of the primer (a discovery Pamela made!). In the story "Boo Jumps", the new words are animal sounds (urp, bow-wow, meow), and the reinforced words are many. Pamela also studies the title page, which is always illustrated. We record her predictions on one sticky note and predicted vocabulary on another before we ever read the story (you can click the picture to see it enlarged). In this story, Pamela predicts very reasonable possibilities: (1) Boo jumps, (2) Boo jumps on the fence, and (3) the animals can chase. She predicts words like fence, Boo, jumps, bow-wow, meow, and urp.


Then, she reads the story aloud to me one time (a single, hopefully attentive reading). After the reading, Pamela orally narrates the story. I film her to avoid slowing her down and listen to the recording to write it and post it on the board. As I write, I sort between sentences that are literal (drawn from the text or illustrations) and sentences that are interpretive. In this narration, Pamela incorrectly sequenced the story, placing Boo's jump before the animals making sounds. The frog makes a sound after the cat and dog jump on the fence (not before). This was the literal part of her narration:

Boo jumps. Boo jumps on the branch. The cat makes a sound. The dog says, "Bow-Wow!" The cat says, "Meow!" The frog says, "Urp!" The cat jumps on the fence. The dog jumps on the fence. The branch breaks. Boo falls.

Pamela included this bit of interpretive thinking in her narration:

Boo says, "Boo!" Boo is not hurt. Boo does not need a doctor.

I place a sticky note with her literal sentences in her narration in the column labeled Understanding and the inferred sentences under Interpretation. One weakness I have observed is that Pamela has difficulty ordering sentences in the correct sequence in her narrations, which is logical since she has difficulty in sequencing words because of her aphasia:


Once she finishes her oral narration, we study her predictions and line out any that were wrong. I make a point to congratulate her for thinking of such wonderful ideas. I am learning that Pamela is a champion at connecting these stories to her own life. This story reminded her of sitting in a tree when she was a little girl, and the dog reminded her of a dog we owned at that time of her life. Making connections comes naturally to Pamela. She makes hardly any connections to other books and stories, and that is what I will be encouraging whenever possible.

At this point of the process, we transition to how we have always done the association method. She and I read a script to practice new syntax and maintain mastered syntax: I read the questions and she, the answers; then, we swap roles; finally, I ask questions and she answers them without peeking. She does her copywork, written narration, and dictation plus worksheet activities that involve explaining why things belong in the same group, looking at a picture and writing her own questions and answers, filling in the blank and answering questions with the focus on correct syntax, and sequencing pictures from the story. Since Pamela finds sequencing difficult, I show her how to break up every story into a beginning, middle, and end. She is much better at sequencing during a narration when she fixes the story's arc in her mind.

The animals are the focus of the beginning of the story.


The middle is Boo's arrival and fall.


The story concludes with Boo and his friends sitting under the tree.



The final step of the Go! Chart is one last oral narration. Nearly every time, Pamela's narrations show great improvement in this final step. Pamela retells the story without peeking or looking at any pictures.

A fence is beautiful. A cat meows. The cat sits on the fence. A dog barks. The cat meows. A frog says, "Urp!" The frog sits on the grass.

Boo says, "Boo!" Boo stands on a branch. Boo falls. Boo is stuck. Boo runs.

Some animals are happy. Some animals see Boo. Some animals see Boo and a broken branch. Boo is happy.

At this point, I often see ways to improve Pamela's narrations further. While she usually correctly sequences the big picture, the little details are sometimes in the wrong order. Borrowing an idea from Cheri Hedden, I type up the narration, one sentence per line. Then, I cut it into strips, one sentence per strip. She lines out and removes any sentences with incorrect details. She sorts into beginning, middle, and end and orders the sentences in each block in the most logical order.


We work in improving narrations in other ways. Sometimes, I find her sentences too brief in content. When I type them, I leave blanks for her to add more detail. I call this making a sentence better. One day, Pamela, inspired to go above and beyond the call of duty, narrated forty-nine sentences. Some sentences repeated the same information, one more detailed than the other. I showed her how to choose the better sentence.



After we finish, I paper clip all the sticky notes and sentence strips in one bag and store them in a Ziploc bag. This helps me to store her work in an organized manner.


At this point, I am scaffolding Pamela by writing everything for her on the stick notes. The first step in the transition will be for her to write the final narration all by herself. Then, I plan to turn over the responsibility for writing all the notes, one column at a time.

Improving Reading Comprehension (Model)

In my introduction to "Improving Reading Comprehension", I narrated background information Jennifer Spencer provided about (1) five kinds of long-term memory, (2) Charlotte Mason's understanding of memory, (3) strategies for getting facts and information into long-term memory, (4) assessing reading comprehension, and (5) sources of three models of retelling/narration. Jennifer did not explain Charlotte Mason's model because Charlotte Mason educators were her audience, so I concluded with links to Charlotte Mason's writings about narration. In this blog post, I will describe the other two models plus Jennifer's hybrid and the results of her research. In my next blog post, I will narrate how I have applied her very practical session at home.

The first book Jennifer reviews is Read and Retell by Hazel Brown and Brian Cambourne. This book contains thirty-eight examples of descriptive, persuasive, argumentative, explanatory, and instructive writing. It outlines four steps in narration. First, teachers build a background by encouraging students to think forward to the story and predict the content, vocabulary words, and phrases based on the title of the story. Second, students read the text, orally or silently. Third, students retell the story in writing without peeking. Fourth, students in small groups share and compare retellings, figuring out how they differ from each other and differ from the texts. Then, they rewrite their narrations fixing altered meaning, omitted details, borrow ideas from other narration, etc.

Jennifer explains several aspects of this approach that seemed out of line with Charlotte Mason principles. She thought the method seemed artificial, not organic to the process of reading to know and telling what is known. The passages selected by the authors are not as literary as Charlotte Mason would have recommended. Moreover, Charlotte preferred whole, living books to excerpts and highlights. Finally, students are encouraged to reread the text, while Charlotte Mason emphasized a single reading.

Jennifer favored the second book in developing her hybrid model of teaching four aspects of narration (sequencing, connecting, interpreting, and narrating): The Power of Retelling. This developmental model of retelling enables children to add abstract, critical, and inferential thinking to their narrations. Developmentally appropriate strategies cover four stages: pretelling, guided retelling, story map retelling, and written retelling. The pretelling step is just like the first step of the earlier model (predicting content, words, and phrasing). In the guided retelling stage, teachers use concrete techniques to explain the structure of stories, identify elements of the story, and build background knowledge with related books. They also model narration for the students. In the story map retelling stage, teachers show student how to use abstract tools like graphic organizers to see patterns and highlight relationships between parts versus the whole, personal experiences, and various comparisons. This step enables students to move beyond exact retellings. The written retelling stage is very similar to the process explained in the earlier book. If this approach intrigues you and the book does not satisfy your hunger, one of the co-authors, Vicki Benson, holds seminars!

Jennifer's hybrid model includes living books and allows a single attentive reading. She chooses whole novels and builds background knowledge through picture storybooks and nonfiction trade books related to the novel. She recommends working through the developmental stages outlined in The Power of Retelling. She finds the best graphic organizer for retelling is a six-column Go! Chart with columns for prediction, vocabulary, understanding, interpretation (abstract ideas, theme, real meaning, tone, symbolism, inference), connection (with the phrase "__________ reminds me of __________ because __________), and retelling (beginning, middle, end). Her students write their ideas on sticky notes and place them on the chart. First, her students record pretelling in the first two columns (prediction and vocabulary). Next, they read the story and write notes on their literal understanding and interpretation in the next two columns (understanding and inference). They make connections and justify them in the connections column. They review their predictions, take down any wrong ones, and make new ones for future chapters. Then, they retell the story, keeping clear the beginning, middle, and end of the chapter. Finally, they create a comic strip with one square for each chapter to guide them when they write a narration of the entire novel at the end of the last chapter. Jennifer also encourages parents to hear ten minutes of reading aloud every day.

Jennifer flies through the results of the three areas measured by the Ekwall-Shanker Reading Inventory (oral reading accuracy, oral reading comprehension, and silent reading comprehension). After the pretest, she spent twelve weeks applying these ideas with a fourth grade class reading the novel Little Women. Then, she retested after twelve weeks and observed a leap of one to two grade levels in all three areas assessed.

In my final blog post about this breakout session, I plan to show how we are applying Jennifer's model at home.

Improving Reading Comprehension (Introduction)

The plenary sessions I have narrated so far involve abstract thinking about the meaning of Charlotte Mason's principles with respect to assessment. The talk on geography also focused more on ideas rather than practical application. Breakout sessions are usually more concrete with an emphasis on how to implement her ideas. The first one I attended was exactly that, for I walked out of the classroom with techniques that I am already using in real life! Because my notes on this one are copious, I have broken the narration into two segments (Introduction and Model), followed up a blog post about my experience with her model to date.

Jennifer Spencer, the Assistant Director of The Village School, spoke about a research project she did to complete her master's degree from Gardner-Webb University. She called this session, "Improved Reading Comprehension through Retelling". She begins by turning to research covered in the book Brain Matters by Patricia Wolfe. Charlotte Mason's primary educational habit to form was the habit of attention, which is not an easy task when you realize that the brain discards ninety-nine percent of stimuli with fifteen seconds. (I thought to myself that it is no wonder too much sensory input overwhelms autistic children!) She reminds us that Charlotte Mason hinted at the difference between long-term and short-term memory (the inner place and the outer court). In case you are curious, I found a wonderful quote on page 257 of Volume 6:

But the mind was a deceiver ever. Every teacher knows how a class will occupy itself diligently by the hour and accomplish nothing, even though the boys think they have been reading. We all know how in we could stand an examination on the daily papers over which we pore. Details fail us, we can say,––"Did you see such and such an article?" but are not able to outline its contents. We try to remedy this vagueness in children by making them take down, and get up, notes of a given lesson: but we accomplish little. The mind appears to have an outer court into which matter can be taken and again expelled without ever having entered the inner place where personality dwells. Here we have the secret of learning by rote, a purely mechanical exercise of which no satisfactory account has been given, but which leaves the patient, or pupil, unaffected. Most teachers know the dreariness of piles of exercises into which no stray note of personality has escaped.

Jennifer explains that our long-term memory has five kinds of storage (like files in a filing cabinet). She mentions two, semantic and emotional memory. Semantic memory, the focus of the teaching profession, involves facts and information not associated with events in one's life and is most difficult to retain. On the other hand, emotional memory, the most powerful, derives from emotionally charged events in one's life.

I would like to add how fascinating this information to me from the perspective of Relationship Development Intervention. The link I found furthered my understanding of memory, which comes in two forms, non-declarative and declarative. The former is the kind of memory that is recalled non-verbally, while the latter is recalled in words. Non-declarative memory comes to people much more readily: procedural memory (blowing bubbles with gum or candlewicking), motor skill memory (procedural memory so well-learned that it no longer requires any thought--did you ever reach the store and not recall actually driving there?), and the emotional memory (discussed in the last paragraph). Declarative memory requires the recall of facts and information, the domain of schools. It has two forms, episodic memory and semantic memory. Episodic memories derive from events that happen in our lives at a specific time and place and are most powerful when anchored by emotion. When taught with traditional methods (oral lessons and emotionally dry textbooks lacking storytelling), semantic memory require practice and review for facts and information to make it to long-term memory.

Please humor me with one more rabbit trail before turning back to Jennifer's session. In the passage quoted earlier, Charlotte Mason observed difficulties we have in storing information in semantic memory. After we read the newspaper, "Details fail us, we can say,––'Did you see such and such an article?' but are not able to outline its contents." Teachers give an oral lesson, and "We try to remedy this vagueness in children by making them take down, and get up, notes of a given lesson: but we accomplish little." She noticed information is lost most readily when it "leaves the patient, or pupil, unaffected." Charlotte sprinkles her writing with hints at the marks of a fit book that stirs the souls of pupils by making an emotional connection.

A book may be long or short, old or new, easy or hard, written by a great man or a lesser man, and yet be the living book which finds its way to the mind of a young reader. (Volume 3, page 178)

There is never a time when they are unequal to worthy thoughts, well put; inspiring tales, well told. Let Blake's Songs of Innocence represent their standard in poetry DeFoe and Stevenson, in prose; and we shall train a race of readers who will demand literature--that is, the fit and beautiful expression of inspiring ideas and pictures of life. (Volume 2, page 263)

Jennifer then talks about ways to improve the chances of facts and information making it to long-term memory. One way to support semantic memory is to tap into emotional memory by forming emotional connections and episodic memory by setting up events related to the knowledge. Acting out a passage, building models, getting first-hand knowledge, taking field trips and using graphic organizers are all ways to support semantic memory. The mind must connect new ideas to prior knowledge ala the law of association (page 157), forming links in a chain of memories. Studies show that peer teaching (group narration), summarizing and paraphrasing (Volume 3, page 180), and self-asking (Volume 3, page 181) all grow dendrites in the brain.

Jennifer addresses the relationship between reading comprehension and retelling (narration). She discusses several problems that crop up when assessing reading comprehension. First, successful decoding does not automatically mean the student comprehends the material. Decoding does not reflect understanding with accuracy. Second, traditional "thinking" questions cause the question writer to think more deeply than the child. Charlotte agreed, quoting a philosophical friend of hers, "The mind can know nothing save what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put to the mind by itself" (Volume 6, page 16).

If decoding and answering clever questionnaires does not reveal comprehension, then what does? Jennifer cites research that a child shows comprehension in how he evaluates, organizes, and presents ideas from a reading passage. Retelling reveals all three of these skills! It requires students to sequence events, connect ideas with background knowledge, recognize and interpret clues in the reading, and construct a cohesive narrative. Jennifer explains that she wanted to see if teaching students these four processes (sequencing, connecting, interpreting, and narrating) is positively correlated with increased reading comprehension scores on standardized tests. (Yes, Virginia, even private school teachers and homeschoolers often find it hard to escape this bogie.)

To see if learning to narrate is positively correlated with improved reading comprehension scores, Jennifer explains she found ways to measure comprehension and to teach processes required in narration. For a pretest and post-test, she collected three narrations from students in a fourth grade class and performed tests from the Ekwall-Shanker Reading Inventory, which contains thirty-eight diagnostic tests in eleven different areas. She selected the oral and silent reading subtest, which assesses oral reading accuracy, oral reading comprehension, and silent reading comprehension. The test tops out at an eighth grade reading level and a couple of students needed higher-level material. She also presented two rubrics made with a free Internet program, Rubistar, to help her score the narrations.

Jennifer explains how she developed developed a hybrid model of how to teach processes required in narration based on three sources: Charlotte Mason (Volume 1, Volume 3, and Volume 6), Read and Retell by Hazel Brown and Brian Cambourne, and The Power of Retelling by Vicki Benson and Carrice Cummins. In my next post about her model, I will explain the latter two models and the results of her research.

Jennifer does not spend much time discussing Charlotte Mason's view of narration because she knows her audience. In case you are new to Charlotte Mason, the following are links to many explanations of narration:

"Reading for Older Children" Volume 1, V, VIII Pages 226-230
"The Art of Narrating" Volume 1, V, IX Pages 231-233
"How to Use School-Books" Volume 3, Chapter 8
Sample Narrations from Examinations Volume 3, Appendix II
Results of Narration Volume 6, Introduction Pages 6-8, 15-17
Elementary Schools Volume 6, II, Chapter 1, Pages 241-248
Secondary Schools Volume 6, II, Chapter 2, Pages 259-261, 268-272

The following are links about the relationship between narration and the mind:

"Well-Being of Mind" Volume 6, I, Chapter 3, Pages 49-52
"Knowledge versus Information" Volume 3, Chapter 8, Pages 224-225
Literature Volume 6, I, Chapter 10, Section II, Page 180-185
"Composition Comes by Nature" Volume 1, V, XIII, Page 247
Composition Volume 6, I, Chapter 10, Section II, Page 190-192
Languages Volume 6, I, Chapter 10, Section II, Page 211-213
"History Books" Volume 1, V, XVIII Pages 288-292
History Volume 6, I, Chapter 10, Section II, Page 169-174
Geography Volume 6, I, Chapter 10, Section III, Page 227
Art Volume 6, I, Chapter 10, Section II, Page 213-217
Citizenship Volume 6, I, Chapter 10, Section II, Page 185-186
"Fitness as Citizens" Volume 3, Chapter 8, Page 88
Public Speaking Volume 6, I, Chapter 5, Page 86

The following are links about the relationship between narration and the soul:

"The Well-Being of the Soul" Volume 6, I, Chapter 3, Pages 63-65
"Method of Bible Lessons" Volume 1, V, XIV, Pages 251-252
"Knowledge of God" Volume 6, I, Chapter 10, Section I, Page 158-169

The following are links with Parents Review articles about narration:

Some Notes on Narration
Concerning "Repeated Narration"
Some Thoughts on Narration
We Narrate and Then We Know