When we homeschooled, I wasn't as committed to narration as I probably should have been as a Charlotte Mason homeschooler. We narrated...sometimes. We did written narrations...sometimes. My children had the skills, but if I had really understood the power of this tool for their education, I would have really embraced Charlotte Mason narration. 

Hindsight is 20/20, and teaching in a Charlotte Mason school this year has really given me some good glasses to see through. With a class of Kindergarteners, we are  starting narration from scratch. It has been an honor to help shape this skill, which will be useful for their entire educations and lives, and also see it grow in my own children. 

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What is Charlotte Mason Narration? 

Narration is sometimes referred to as "telling back," "telling the story" or "recounting". In the context of a Charlotte Mason education, it means telling what was read. Much of what Charlotte Mason said about narration is in Home Education, her first volume. I've shared about it a little in the past, including this post, but it has been quite a while and my understanding has grown quite a bit. 

In Home Education, Charlotte Mason gives us a brief and somewhat vague view of what narration should look like: 

"Narrating is an art, like poetry-making or painting, because it is there, in every child's mind, waiting to be discovered, and is not the result of any process of disciplinary education. A creative fiat calls it forth. 'Let him narrate'; and the child narrates, fluently, copiously, in ordered sequence, with fit and graphic details, with a just choice of words, without verbosity or tautology, so soon as he can speak with ease." Home Education, page 231

From this paragraph, we see that narration is: 

• fluent
• thorough
• in proper sequence
• includes details 
• has well-chose words 
• doesn't include wordiness or repetitiveness

What Narration is Not

Narration is not a summary. We don't read a portion of text to our children and ask them to tell us what they thought of it, what the most important parts are, or to sum it up in a certain amount of words. Instead, we are asking them to tell us what the text said.

This is where you'll find some debate in the Charlotte Mason community. Many trusted Charlotte Mason sources say that narration means to tell it in your own words. I think this is where the idea that it is a summary comes from. In all of my Charlotte Mason studying, training, and conversation, I've never seen her say it is supposed to be in the child's own words. She uses the word "assimilate," which means to make it your own, or to digest it. Through narration, the child makes the knowledge their own, takes it into their minds for the long-term, without necessarily changing what the author said. 

In an article transcribed by Charlotte Mason Poetry but written almost 100 years ago by the head of a PNEU school, Stanley Boardman, he pushed back at the idea that narration is just some memory trick. What, after all, would students learn if they just memorized what they heard rather than actually understanding it? Boardman contests that yes, children will use the words that the author used, but that it doesn't mean it's a memory trick. 

Boardman said, 

In short, we often want children to copy what an author has said, so why would this be an exception? 

At my school, children are encouraged to use the author's language in narration. This helps to expand their vocabulary, and encourages them to listen closely. 

Starting Narration 

While Charlotte Mason thought that narration didn't need to be taught, I've found out through homeschooling and teaching in a CM school that some support is necessary for a lot of, but not all, children.

With our youngest learners, starting narration should be a joy, because they probably love sharing stories with you already! But, as with everything, we need to set the expectations for what it looks like. To do this, I've used these steps with my class: 

1. Model what narration looks like. Take a short part of the story and tell back yourself, making sure to use the author's language and including proper sequencing. 
2. Once you've demonstrated narration a couple of times, tell your child its their turn. Choose a small section of the text (which Boardman says should be pre-selected) and have your child narrate. 
3. You can help your child get started by reading the first line of the passage you want them to tell back. 
4. To support proper sequencing, identify the beginning, middle, and end of a short passage that you read. Have your child build their narration around those three parts. 
5. If your child gets stuck, ask open-ended questions. By open-ended, I mean questions that can be answered in depth and detail, not just in "yes" or "no." This helps to jog the memory and 

A Sample Narration 

What I don't often see is someone narrating as an example, so I wanted to leave one here for you. This is obviously me, as an adult, but also as an adult who feels like narration is really challenging. I've always considered myself a reader but being held accountable (through narration) for what I'm reading is a whole different story. 

I chose The Velveteen Rabbit for this exercise because it's well- known and I just finished reading it with my class. 

"The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any other toys. He was so old that his skin had been rubbed bald and the hair in his tail had been pulled out long ago to make necklaces. He was also wiser than any other toy in the nursery because he had seen toys come and go and the new mechanical toys come in. He knew that the toys would eventually break and that their mainsprings would fail. Nursery magic is very wonderful, and only the toys that had been around for a very long time like the Skin Horse could know all about it." 

Here is what the text actually says: 

"The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for her had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away. He knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the skin horse understand all about it." 

Not a horrible narration, but I definitely have students who can narrate better than I can one semester in to Kindergarten 🙂 

Use Narration in a Variety of Subjects

We often think of the obvious subjects to use the powerful tool of narration: history and literature are so story-based that it's only natural to narrate books surrounding these topics! But narration can be used in many different subjects- 

• Bible
• art appreciation 
• music appreciation 
• science 
• citizenship
• when giving directions

Give it a try for a month or so, and you'll see why this is such a powerful tool that has stood the test of time.