Our Homeschooling Journey: Narration

Teaching in general can be a very daunting task especially to some of us who never had a background at teaching at all. Homeschooling a kid particularly in the early years proves to be extremely challenging. Facing the lessons is only half. Keeping the kid interested, motivated, and engaged is what makes homeschooling even more arduous. This is one of the reasons why parents that choose to homeschool need to always remember the reason the chose homeschooling in the first place.

My daughter and I experienced homeschooling on her kindergarten last school year. We’re just waiting for the moving up ceremony and we’re officially 1st graders! During that one year in kindergarten we learned a lot of things not just academically, but also personally. I learned a lot about my kid and furthermore, I learned new ways to keep our study time as lively and as engaging as possible.

Let me let you in on one of the things I learned this year. Have you ever heard people say that when you really do understand something, it would be very easy for you to explain? Simply put, if you can’t say it, then you don’t know it. That is true. Which is why speakers need to make sure they have a full grasp of the topics they are discussing, otherwise, they lose their audience.

Narration as a learning tool.

The best way to ensure that what was read or heard was understood is through narration. Retelling has been very effective in ensuring that our lessons in our homeschooling journey is thoroughly understood. I would read a few sentences to a paragraph of the lesson, then have my kid try and retell what she heard. It wasn’t easy. It took months before we got our groove. But we did is as consistently as our circumstances allow. I read aloud to her, then she would retell.

We tried it first on some of the classic novels we read. Our first book was The Prince and the Pauper, then we moved to Pinocchio (not the Disney version). It took us a long time to finish those novels, yes, but I can confidently say that she remembers the story better than I do my first books.

Benefits of narration

Narration isn't simply a tool that measures a kid's level of understanding of the topic. More than that, having a kid retell a story has more benefits.

1. Almost full retention of information
   For most of us, or at least for me, keeping information inside my brain is hard. At least after I take the exams. I would ace the exam, get good grades, but after that, my brain shuts down all those information and throw those away. I know this is true because I got a perfect score in my biology exam where we had to memorize tons of scientific names but a few days after that, I don’t remember even one.
   Narration helps in retention. A lot. I introduced Nature Studies to my kid a few months back. And up to now, she can still retell what we read about the different birds that we studied. We used oral narration and narration through art.
2. The kid learns to focus and pay attention
   My daughter’s attention span ranges from 5-6 minutes. I timed. That was back when she was 3 or 4 years old. Using narration in our study time helped a lot in building her focus. She knows she’s not allowed to look at the passage again during her narration time, that’s why she pays attention, so she won’t miss any detail in the story.
3. You get to know your kid more
   Letting your kid do most of the talking during lessons and story time helps us get to know them even more. It’s like getting a front row ticket to their brain mapping system. One of the things I learned is that every kid is born a person. They have their own set of personalities already with them. It is up to us parents to try to get them to show us who they really are. When they retell, when they narrate, they give us a full show of who they are as an individual. Some kids would fixate on a particular part of the story which helps us tell more about their personality. Narration helps kids be themselves more. Thus, helping us parents get to know them more.
4. Kids experience higher level of thinking firsthand
   When you ask a kid to retell what you just read to them, they start trying to remember details in the story. At first, my kid just gives bits and pieces from the sentences. But as we went along, she started having fun with retelling. She started speaking up more and more. The more they speak up, the more they analyze and realize things, the more interesting the conversation gets. When they are interested, they ask more questions. And the more they ask questions, the more they learn. Take note that during the process of narration, kids could also find the answers to their own questions. Which is a very important aspect in developing their ability to analyze and think.

As a homeschooling parent, I see narration as the most effective method of education. It transforms study time from a boring and tedious task to a fun and fruitful bonding moment between parent/educator and child. As opposed to the lecture type of teaching (where the teacher teaches and the students listen), narration is more of a freestyle discuss it all, tell it all, learn it all kind of learning method.

This is one of the things I learned from the trainings I attended in my quest to finding the best way of educating my child. I had to try it out for a few months first to see first if I could sustain it, if my child will adapt to it, and if it will be effective in our homeschooling journey. So far, it has worked for us really well.

While it is very effective, narration could be very challenging especially to those who is new to it. Like most things, the first parts are the hardest. There are quite a few things that one needs to know and remember when starting out with narration as a learning tool. On my next blog entry, I will discuss the things that we need to know as parents before we start out with narration.