After one of our lessons today which was based on a read aloud I asked the children to give me a narration.  I was met with one sentence answers.  I was horrified!  After talking and explaining what I expected I got two sentences.  Not much better.

We then read another section of our story – this time with them being warned that I will be expecting a narration.  They did much better. But it is obviously something we have to work on.

What we are dealing with here is lazy muscles.  We haven’t done this for a while and the children weren’t actively listening, they weren’t getting involved with the reading material.

After reading Successful Narration by Sheila Carroll, and my own notes on Narration, I am going to focus on the following areas as we improve on our Oral Narrations:

1. Warn them and tell them what my expectations are
2. Keep reading matter suitable both in depth of subject matter and duration of reading – maybe 10minutes
3. Do it regularly – at least twice a day (two different subjects)
4. Be prepared to ask prompting questions.  I’m going to print off this list.
5. Find other times to ask the children to retell (Science, Movies, Outings)