I think most of us know the simple song, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

If I asked you, you could probably sing it without much effort.

But what if I asked you not to sing it, but to put the lyrics into your own words?

Just to refresh your memory, here are the original lyrics.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, how I wonder what you are. Up above

the world so high like a diamond in the sky. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, how I wonder what

you are. Can you put those ideas into your own words? Now here's another perhaps not

so familiar stanza. Listen carefully and see if you

can put these lines into your own words, too. When the blazing sun is set and the grass with

dew is wet, then you show your little light, twinkle twinkle all the night. Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle all the night.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.

It sounds like a simple thing to do, to listen to or read something and then put it into your

own words. But that simple method can be a powerful learning tool when you use it in your home school.

Let's explore how Charlotte Mason used this tool called narration to help students learn.

Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast. I'm Sonia Schaefer. Narration in its simplest form is telling back in your own words what you just read or heard. It's a much higher thinking level than true or false questions or multiple choice or fill in the blank.

What you're asking your student to do is to listen or read attentively, remember what was

read, put it into the correct sequence, mix it with related ideas already in his mind

from other readings or experiences, form it into coherent sentences,

and then present it.

Yet narration is a uniquely personal experience.

No two children will narrate exactly the same, and that's the beauty of narration.

It allows each student to interact with

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