Charlotte Mason wrote a great summary statement of how to do a narration lesson in the book

School Education.

And it goes like this.

The simplest way of dealing with a paragraph or a chapter is to require the child

to narrate its contents after a single attentive reading.

School Education page 179. I like that, the simplest way. Simple is good,

as long as it's effective. And I think that there are a couple of details in that summary

statement that can make a big difference in how effective a narration lesson is. They both have

to do with how much reading is happening before the narration. So let's take a look.

Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast.

I'm Sonia Schaefer.

Let's break Charlotte's simple summary statement down into three key elements.

Number one, require the child to narrate.

Number two, a paragraph or a chapter.

Number three, after a single attentive reading.

First, require the child to narrate.

At its simplest level, narration is telling back what you have heard or read or experienced

in your own words.

Now notice, Charlotte did not say, require the child to answer your questions on the content.

Narration is not a quiz.

It is not a feat of memory.

It's a much higher thinking level than that.

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