Posts Tagged improve comprehension

Oral narration is not the only way to improve comprehension and long term retention in your older home school child.  For the  eight to eleven year old kid and even the high school teen, written narration can be the catalyst for deepening knowledge, intelligent interpretation, and regular note taking.  Here are two examples for effectively using oral and written narration in your classical home school.

Eight to Eleven Year Olds

Most kids and preteens working at the late elementary school level can handle written narration without much parental guidance.  First start by asking your child to tell  you what he has just learned.  If he’s reading  a book, ask for an oral narration after each chapter.  If he’s watching a video documentary, stop the video and ask him to give an oral narration after each segment or module.  Once he has spoken his thoughts, it’s time to get them down on paper.  For the younger child, this may mean that you have to take dictation as he talks; he can then copy what you have written.  If he’s older, have him write his own thoughts in a complete one-idea paragraph.

When my kids were young, I created a narration template for them to use.  I took a blank piece of 8.5 x 11 inch copy paper and visually divided it into thirds.  I left the top 2 thirds blank so that they could draw a picture from the reading or video.  I used a ruler to draw horizontal lines on the bottom third of the page; this is where they either copied my dictation or wrote their own narration of the main ideas of the story.  Download your own copy of my homeschool narration template.  Drawing for understanding is also extremely helpful, and when you combine the picture with the narrated text, you’ve got a recipe for thinking success.

High School Preteens and Teens

Who says narration is only for little kids?  Written and oral narration are perfect tools for improving understanding for homeschool preteens and teens, too; however, you have to reverse the process for those kids doing high school level work.  For the older homeschooler, written narration usually comes before oral narration.  As the highschooler is reading a text or watching a video lecture, have him take comprehensive notes.  Personally, my favorite note-taking method is called branching, but you could capture the main points of the reading or video using a formal roman numeral outline or a mind map.  Drawing diagrams to help reinforce understanding of complex concepts like parts of a muscle or a fictional plot line provides an even better layer of learning.

Once your homeschool high school teen has completed his notes, he is now ready to reconstruct his thoughts by writing an abstract or summary of his interpretation.  In my experience with my own kids, a typical high school abstract  from a 30 minute lecture will run 2-3 paragraphs which is about a page to a page and a half of handwritten text.  After the written narration is complete, it is time to share what has been learned with a parent or sibling through oral narration.  Explaining his understanding to another person will help with knowledge retention and clarify any areas that he doesn’t fully understand so that he can go back and reread the text or watch that portion of the video.  Just imagine how valuable this written narration inventory will be if you have your homeschool  high school teen take notes, write a summary, and give an oral narration of his understanding for every chapter or lecture!

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In addition to the new envelope icon below my signature for sending emails to your friends, I’ve just added another feature for my homeschool articles:  “print this post.”  Now if you want a written copy of the post, you can click on this link, and print the formatted article.  Why don’t you start your own ‘Strategies for Homeschooling Excellence’ binder today?