The Easy Way to do Charlotte Mason Narration

 Narration is reading a passage and then immediately recalling what you read and saying it in your own words. So your student is paraphrasing what they just read without the benefit of reading it twice. This helps them with focus, recall, and even critical thinking skills.

I've seen a few bloggers complain about how much their child hates narration and how difficult it is to get through a lesson. I believe they are doing it the hard way. Reading should be fun. Telling someone else about a story you just read should also be fun. 

When we read to our kids and then ask them to tell us what we just read, the child then thinks, "what's the point?" "You know what we just read. You were the one reading it."

Take out a sheet of paper and tell them that you need to write it down for their file. Then have them paraphrase a little at a time for you until they have it all down. 

In the early years don't do narration a lot. Definitely not every day. You just want to introduce them to the concept, and teach them how it's done. 

Then when they are good readers and reading things for themselves, you can do it every time they read something. Just ask, "What did you read?" Tell me about it." You can do this while prepping supper and folding laundry just like my mom did with me. It wasn't hard, it was just as natural as having a conversation.

If your child is the sort that summarizes things too quickly and sums up the whole book in a few sentences, then ask questions to draw them out.

"Then what happened?" 
"What happened next?" 
"I think you skipped something. What happened at this point?" 
"When did this happen?" 
"How did it happen?"
"Who had the hardest time?" (A good one for history narration, or literature.)
"What was your favorite part?"
"What was your least favorite part?"

Drawing out that quiet person in your life is a good life skill for you too. If you can do this with narration, you can do this in other areas of their life. You can help them open up about their thoughts and feelings when life gets hard, as long as you do it with kindness and grace.

The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. Proverbs 20:5

The bottom line when it comes to narration is to make it fun and natural. Don't require too much of your young learners. Just work on it enough, in the beginning, to help them learn the basics. Then, when they are older and reading for themselves, they will know how to narrate.