recitation Archives - My Little Robins

In this post, the fifth in the series, I'm sharing Charlotte Mason's recommendations for narration and recitation (that was a mouthful!) for children ages 6-9.

Recitation is not something that will be entirely new this year for us. Miss H has been memorizing scripture for several years. But memorizing poems will be a new thing this year, one that I'm looking forward to.

We've held off on narration until this point, but now that Miss H is six, I sometimes ask her to tell back what we've read. Recently, I asked her to narrate something, and when she was finished, she stood up and took a bow. This is the perfect method for a natural born performer.

These two areas will help children become better communicators, practice articulating words, and will help them better understand and connect with what they've read. For these reasons, I believe that these areas are essential! The recommendations I wrote about below are only from Home Education, as I'm trying to simplify our first year of homeschooling.

Recitation

"The child must not try to recollect or to say the verse over to himself, but, as far as may be, present an open mind to receive an impression of interest. Half a dozen repetitions should give children possession of such poems as 'Dolly and Dick,' 'Do you ask what the birds say?' 'Little lamb, who made thee?' and the like. The gains of such a method of learning are, that the edge of the child's enjoyment is not taking off by weariful verse by verse repetitions, and, also, that the habit of making mental images is unconsciously formed." Home Education, page 225

In this volume, recitation is described as a natural process that occurs after repeated readings. Reading a poem several times aloud to a child should be enough to help them capture it in their hearts and minds forever. At this stage, a "repeat after me" approach is not recommended. Therefore, a child might participate in recitation without really knowing that memorizing is the goal!

Throughout the process, a child picks up their own meaning from the passage, and it is reflected in his or her voice. Children should be encouraged to speak each word clearly and accurately, which is so important and so helpful when our children are very young!

Charlotte Mason listed several poem possibilities for recitation, but she also said that children should store their hearts with Bible verses as well:

"The learning by heart of Bible passages should begin while the children are quite young, six or seven, is a delightful thing to have the memory stored with beautiful, comforting, and inspiring passages, and we cannot tell when and how this manner of seed may spring up grow, and bear fruit..." Home Education, page 253

Home Education Curriculum: Recitation

I've used affiliate links to share with you some of the books that we'll use. You can read more about affiliate links in my policies.

Charlotte Mason recommended these poems for recitation during the first years of school:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod by Eugene Field

Miss Lilywhite's Party by George Cooper

Answer to a Child's Question by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Little Lamb by William Blake

*She also recommended Dolly and Dick, which I believe is this poem, Epitath, by Jonathan Swift. But this is not a poem that I would want my young child to ruminate on!

Since we are using this poetry book for our reading lessons this year, I've decided that we will use it for recitation as well. Some of the above mentioned poems are in the volume, which we will seek out and memorize.

Narration

"...she may read two or three pages, enough to include an episode; after that, let her call upon the children to narrate- in turns, if there be several of them. They not only narrate with spirit and accuracy, but succeed in catching the style of their author. It is not wise to tease them with corrections; they may begin with an endless chain of 'ands,' but they soon leave this off, and their narrations become good enough in style and composition to be put in a 'print book'!" Home Education, page 233

Narration is a super-hero of sorts. It single-handedly replaces comprehension questions, vocabulary quizzes, book reports, and oral presentations. In it, a child reads a few paragraphs, or as they progress, a few pages, and tells what they have read, assimilating the knowledge as their own. Assimilation has two definitions:

to take in and fully understand information and ideas
the process of absorbing and digesting digest food and nutrients in the body

The second definition is more relevant than it might seem at first glance. Charlotte Mason likens ideas and living books as food for the mind, so by narrating, a child is properly taking in his or her food for the mind.

Charlotte Mason recommended calling forth this act of narration when a child is six. They are capable of narrating before that, and most likely do narrate what they experience throughout the day.

These recommendations stood out to me regarding beginning narration with a young child:

When the child is six, not earlier, let him narrate the fairy-tale which has been read to him, episode by episode, upon one hearing of each; the Bible tale read to him in the words of the Bible; the well-written animal story; or all about other lands from some such volumes as the World at Home." Home Education, page 232
"The seven-years-old boy will have begun to read for himself, but must get most of his intellectual nutriment, by ear, certainly, but read to him out of books." Home Education, page 232 (This seems a little bit of a contradiction, as she also says that once a child learns to read, he or she should read to himself, and that being read to will make him become lazy.)

Home Education Curriculum: Narration

Charlotte Mason specifically recommended books that a child can narrate, a few pages at a time, from the ages of 6-8:

The World at Home by Mary and Elizabeth Kirby

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne (contains magic)

We will narrate our geography, reading, and Bible selections, although I haven't planned to read any of the above books yet.

Other Resources

My Charlotte Mason book group is currently reading Know and Tell by Karen Glass, the most complete resource I've ever found on narration. It has been so helpful, and I'm thankful to have found it before beginning narration.

Narration and recitation, two areas we'll add into our first official year of Charlotte Mason homeschooling.

A few months ago, I received a very sweet comment from a reader who believed I had used the term “recitation” incorrectly. She had read one of my very first posts, about teaching children to memorize scripture. When I was a teacher, we called this worthy art of memorizing and beautifully repeating scripture, poems, and passages “Recitation.” But this lovely reader believed I had used the terms recitation and memory work incorrectly, stating that recitation was simply the art of reading something beautifully, and that it wasn’t said by memory. I can see how this could be, but I wanted to dig into this a little more for myself.

Is recitation the art of reading something beautifully, and memory work is the art of memorizing and saying something by memory?

Or- is recitation the art of saying something beautifully that has been memorized, and memory work is the actual process of memorizing?

Or- are recitation and memory work similar and compatible, to be used interchangeably?

As we draw nearer to formal lessons, these topics interest me more and more. I want to be prepared for these things when our formal lessons start!

Why the Confusion?

In Home Education, Charlotte Mason calls recitation the “fine art of beautiful and perfect speaking.” (page 223). On the same page, she goes on to say, “The child should speak beautiful thoughts so beautifully, with such delicate rendering of each nuance of meaning, that he becomes to the listener the interpreter of the author’s thought. ” During her description of recitation, she does not say anything about speaking from memory.

In fact, on page 224 she says, “Recitation and committing to memory are not necessarily the same thing.” (emphasis mine.) This is where it gets confusing. Should our children be encouraged to memorize something and recite it beautifully? Or do we allow them (when they’re older!) to read passages to recite?

In Recitation: The Children’s Art, which Charlotte Mason referred to on page 222-223 of Home Education, Arthur Burrell said that recitation informs good reading. He recommended filling a copybook with beautiful passages and poems so that a child can learn them. Here, it seems unclear to me if he means learn them as in “reads fluently” or “commits to memory.”

Up until this point, it seems like recitation definitely means learning to say it beautifully, as is read from a book.

But then, Miss Mason adds this passage:

Bible Recitations.–The learning by heart of Bible passages should begin while the children are quite young, six or seven. It is a delightful thing to have the memory stored with beautiful, comforting, and inspiring passages, and we cannot tell when and how this manner of seed may spring up, grow, and bear fruit…” Home Education, page 253

Notice the name of the section: Bible recitations. Storing the memory with beautiful, comforting, inspiring passages.

What is Recitation?

According to Dictionary.com, recitation is:

1. an act of reciting 2. a reciting or repeating of something from memory, especially formally or publicly.

Because of this and the passages I mentioned above, my interpretation is that recitation can be both: something read beautifully, and something said beautifully from memory. When Charlotte Mason said that recitation and memory work aren’t necessarily the same thing, maybe she was establishing the same relationship as the square and the rectangle: memory work is always recitation, but recitation is not always memory work.

Recitation as Reading

So what does recitation as reading look like? In his article, Arthur Burrell gave these guidelines:

(1). Be very careful about pronunciation.
(2). Let pieces be learnt bit by bit, after a careful explanation has been given.
(3). The child must stand to read. Other positive rules come in here.
(4). A piece once learnt must be occasionally repeated.

He recommended keeping a commonplace book and writing down beautiful passages, poems, and verses.

Recitation as Remembering

In continuing her thoughts about storing the memory with Bible passages, Charlotte Mason said-

“….but the learning of the parable of the Prodigal son, for example, should not be laid on the children as a burden. The whole parable should be read to them in a way to bring out its beauty and tenderness; and then, day by day, the teacher should recite a short passage, perhaps two or three verses, saying it over some three or four times until the children think they know it. Then, but not before, let them recite the passage. Next day the children will recite what they have already learned, and so on, until they are able to say the whole parable.” Home Education, page 253

I described the process I used for recitation as remembering with my young daughter in this post– (I chose not to delay scripture memorization until the age of six because my daughter was ready and interested!)

Either way, recitation is worthy and helpful for children to train the powers of the mind, and also the physical function of speech. I don’t want to get caught up on the technicalities of Charlotte Mason’s vision and instead focus on the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Narration, Recitation, and Mastering the Art of Speaking