When I find myself rereading passages of novels, or other books that I have chosen for pleasure-reading, I realize that I have lost my focus. A British educator, renowned in the 19th century, Charlotte Mason, developed a simple method of teaching students to retain information. She wrote, “[The child] should be trained from the first to think that one reading of any lesson is enough to enable him to narrate what he has read, and will thus get the habit of slow, careful reading, intelligent even when it is silent, because he reads with an eye to the full meaning of every clause.”
If it sounds a bit Victorian, it is. Mason lived from 1842-1923, during Queen Victoria’s reign. Her greatest contribution as an educator came from her powers of observation. Instead of following the theorists of the time, she observed students as they went about the business of learning. Through this practice she developed the concept she called, “narration.”
Narration is retelling. It is not memorization or parroting. Narration includes feelings and reactions that merge the spirit of the teller with the spirit of the author. It is an essay response to a broad, open-ended question, testing what the learner knows, not what he doesn’t know. In the process, students become attentive listeners, clear thinkers, careful speakers, expressive writers and lovers of books.
This method can be taught beginning in kindergarten. Students will refine it themselves as they listen to lectures or read research for a project.
How to Use Oral Narration in Class
1. Briefly review previous material in order to awaken the mind and imagination.
2. Lightly introduce a small portion of new vocabulary if there is a lot of it. Minimize time spent on this as understanding of new words will be gained by context.
3. Instruct students to listen with the intent of telling back. Present the material once.
4. Ask one student, and then another to narrate until the whole story or selection is told back.
5. If a student states something incorrectly during an oral narration, she should not be corrected during the course of it. Let another narration naturally follow with the corrected version.
6. Move from shorter to longer passages.
7. Use written narration once the student is confident in telling back orally.
8. A teacher can keep a written record as an evaluation of the student’s progress. I usually make a chart of significant points and check them off.
This is an effective way to begin narration with young children. More later on how to begin with older students.
