Narrations + Recitation; Cycle I Term II Exams

We completed exams for A Gentle Feast for this term. Hooray! We will have a family celebration next week with grandparents and treats as a way to celebrate their work. She will recite all of her work, verse, poetry, etc, and display all of her drawings, nature journal, handicrafts, etc. By having these little end-of-term celebrations, she will also be practicing public speaking skills! A couple things I would do next time is perhaps have her stand facing me to give her undivided attention. She became distracted with paper or crayons that were before her and that threw off her train of thought. I highly recommend Know + Tell by Karen Glass for everything one needs to know about narration. I will document her narrations and recitations here in digitial form instead of written form to save time and to remember her cute little congested voice at the time. 😉

So after I recorded every area I wanted to ask her about, I would then encourage and affirm her wonderful job! Then I might add a “may I narrate something you left out?” To which she would say “yes” then I would add in (correct) the work and then we would move on. I do not have her narrate again but with the corrections. However I think next time I will write out on the board all of the main topics I’d like us to review (or do that throughout the week) before we jump into her official telling back. Lastly, just to be clear, she narrates after almost every single reading we do for schoolwork. This is just how I document at the end of term to and see how much she learned and how better to assess for next term!

Our students obviously learn much more than what we document. I could have asked her about many more parts of the Feast! I simply chose to ask about these things at random. Also, grades one through three are all about building oral fluency. Some key principles to keep in mind:

Narration should be done from high-quality material with rich vocabulary. Narration is most effective if the material is read attentively only once. Narration should not be interrupted by questioning. Narrations may be corrected or completed by the teacher when they are finished. Narration of some material should be requested for a second time at regular intervals. Narration should be the child’s own work! (Know + Tell)

I hope this was helpful! And when it comes to narrations, be encouraged because “Any teacher who decides to use narration should keep these principles in mind. It is a brave thing to take up what seems to many an unconventional tool in our educational endeavors, but having done so, we should take care to use that tool in the ways that will be most effective. Only in this way will we realize the full benefits of our efforts and be able to stand firm in the path that we have chosen.” ~ Karen Glass