Learning Styles and Narration

[gardenmama28]

Just wondering how learning styles can affect a kid's ability to narrate, after listening to a passage that is read out loud to them...... If a child is not an auditory learner, can this complicate their ability to answer questions and respond to questions after being read aloud to????

My daughter is a hands-on, visual learner. She struggles to answer some questions after I have read a history lesson to her (LHFHG). Is this typical for her age (6) as she learns to concentrate on listening carefully? Or would it be a sign of laziness? Or should I attribute it to her learning style and give her a break when it comes to remembering what she has heard????

I know that Charlotte Mason insisted on only one reading before narration, should I just keep encouraging her to listen more carefully? Thanks for any advice.

[StephanieU]

Are you talking about the questions at the end of the chapter in History Stories for Children? If so, I think it is normal. This text is actually a 3rd grade text according to CLP (the publishers), so the questions are at that level. My daughter can't answer most of the questions many days because they are so specific and not what she grabbed on to. I read over the questions and see if we should try to answer them or not depending on the meat of the question and the difficulty.

Is she having a hard time with the narration in the Burgess books? If she is fine there, then don't stress about it. Oh, and the History for LIttle Pilgrims questions are also hard to answer since you aren't readying a full chapter at a time. When you go a week between reading and answering, it is fine for them to not be able to answer the questions as well.

[gardenmama28]

She has the most trouble with the History stories for children questions...... She does alot better with the Burgess Animal stories, but often does not give a very thorough response. Sometimes I ask more questions to encourage her to give more detail. Maybe she needs more modeling / instruction on what I am looking for?

It was reassuring to hear that your child is similar with the history questions. Sometimes I find that the questions in that book refer to something that was only mentioned one time...... rather than the main point of the reading.

[StephanieU]

My daughter is hit and miss based on how engaged she is in the chapter of the Burgess book. And from what I read, they have a lot of time to grow in these skills, as they are only in the first guide with narration. Beyond and Bigger have oral narration, and then Preparing is the first wtih written (and still oral). And I think in the later guides they are instructions for narration to help them as well.

[Nealewill]

I would say this is totally normal. With my son, I have to ask questions every so many paragraphs! It has gotten better. Just to make sure my kids are engaged, I will ask a question every page. It isn't necessarily a forced question, just conversational in nature. I think by asking that one question each page or so, it just helps me to know if they were listening. And I think it keeps them listening. My dd who is 9 is to the point I no longer do it. I stopped doing that with her when she was 8. My younger two are also very close to that point to. I think I could probably stop doing it now and all would be fine. But it just helps me to know that they were actually listening.

[MelInKansas]

It definitely affects their ability, or affects whether it will come to them naturally. My first is a hands-on learner. Narration has been a struggle. I will say too, I have probably "held her back" in this area by being too easy on her in it because I know it is hard for her. I don't always follow the directions given. But I think we are over that now, she is 9 and she usually does pretty well if she is focussed and if I tell her beforehand she will be narrating. My 2nd born is very strong in auditory learning and she has done really well from the start. Of course she was also exposed to what her sister was doing so I am sure that helped her also. But even my 2nd often can't answer the specific questions in some of the books. So I do help her with that, or sometimes we go back and read to find the answer (especially in the Burgess books we would do that). If she can't remember a certain name or very specific detail I don't worry about that. If she can't remember anything, then I worry a little more, but generally she does okay.

[Carrie]

I'll just pop-in to this great discussion to share that narration is different than answering questions. Narrating upon a passage means having the child tell back in a his/her own words what was remembered from the passage that was just read. The questions at the end of the chapters in History Stories for Children or History for Little Pilgrims actually aren't leading to narration. They are more just question and answer sessions. The questions in these cases are an extra bonus part of the readings that I don't consider to be hugely necessary at this stage of learning. Especially when the reading has been spread out over more than one day, your child should not be expected to remember the answers to those questions that are delayed in the asking. The activities that follow the reading (in the other boxes of the LHFHG day's plans) are those that I would consider more appropriate and necessary skill-wise for students to complete.

On the other hand, the Thornton Burgess style questions are meant to lead to narration. These questions are what I would consider to be narration prompts or narration starters. Each day of the Storytime part of the plans has a specific skill focus. This means that each day hits a different set of skills, all of which are very important to building narration, discernment, vocabulary, writing and a host of other skills.

A child's learning style may affect how well or how easily a child narrates, but kiddos of all learning styles can learn to narrate well. While auditory learners may be good listeners, this doesn't necessarily mean that they will easily be able to sift and sort through what they heard in order to organize into a lucid narration! While visual learners will definitely benefit from seeing and reading their own textual material leading to better narration, it doesn't mean that they won't be able to narrate well until they can read their material themselves. While kinesthetic, hands-on learners will definitely benefit from acting out the story to help retell it (as we do in the Storytime box of the plans), or in writing or typing their narration as we do in later guides, this doesn't mean that they can't learn to be great narrators unless those techniques are used. I know this is true, because it has been true for my 4 sons.

My oldest son is definitely a bodily, kinesthetic learner. Yet, he is good a seeing the big picture which makes him a natural oral narrator even when he just listens or reads without any bodily motion. My second son is a detailed, artistic child. He is not auditory, but is very visual, yet his sense of detail leads to him being a good, detailed oral narrator (whether he is listening or reading the material himself). My third son is an auditory child, who loves anything audio or read aloud; yet he was my briefest narrator for several years. Now, he narrates very well when he reads to himself or is read aloud to; which just means that it took him some time to come along in the narration department. My youngest is also auditory, and he is coming along in the narrating department but taking his time to work up to any length. As you can see, we have all the learning styles represented at our house, yet success in narrating doesn't necessarily correlate to their learning style. I share this so you can be assured that all children can learn to narrate regardless of their learning style, with regular practice. We build this practice into all of HOD guides, so you can be sure that we will help you lead your children toward becoming better narrators one step at a time.

Blessings,
Carrie