Narration Encouragement

We sailed through our first term this year with loads of great and thorough narrating especially from my oldest son who has always struggled with language arts stuff. I was pleased and excited and really felt that we had made it....problems solved, they knew what to do and had acquired the habit of attention for narrating purposes.
Then we had a long Christmas break and ever since starting our 2nd term narrating has been a HUGE struggle. Some for Ali but mostly for Tom, sigh.

So I've been trying to evaluate what has changed and what might need to be changed to help the poor kid out.
First, I remember that I used a narration jar for most of the 1st term and both kids really enjoyed that, so I finally made up more questions this morning and restocked our narration jar.
Second, because I've been frustrated and Tom has been unwilling I've found myself falling into the habit of quizzing, goading and just plain nagging him. Bad mom!!

Teachers become so inured to this practice of goading their pupils' thoughts along prescribed channels, that information not given within the limits they choose to place seems illogical and discursive.

Today, blessedly, I received a very informative and inspiring email from yahoo group AmbleLore. Seriously if you aren't part of this group you simply must join. I don't get to read it that often but when I have read it has been an excellent addition to my education as an educator.

Go, right now and join this group and then look for the message titled On Narration. You won't regret it, even if narration is not a struggle right now this author gives incentive for you and your children to take it to a new level.

You can also visit my scribd docs and find the narrations cards that I just made today (copied from several sources) for our narration jar.