Kain's narration

Our curriculum, being classical in nature, uses a lot of narration. For the uninitiated, narration is a method of developing listening skills and reading comprehension. We don't use readers with their neat little compartmentalized stories and comprehension questions at the end. We use real books, and the child "retells" the story in their own words and often illustrates it as well. As they get older, their narrations become better and more detailed. The narrations can also become writing practice as they get older, and can involve other subjects. For example, as writing becomes easier for Kain, he will copy his narrations instead of them being left in my typing. And for Maria, her narrations are used for art appreciation. We will do a picture study, and she will describe the picture back to me, I will write down her description, edit it with her for good grammar and sentence composition, and then she will recopy her edited description in her best cursive.

When they are illustrated, I will often include a "caption" for the picture. This is Kain's narration from religion today. These early narrations are some of my favorite assignments. Their thoughts are so precious and funny, and you never know what in the story will impress them or what kinds of details they will add. This narration was from a story about St. Anne from "Once Upon a Time Saints".


You can click on the picture to enlarge it. He describes the picture as "St. Joachim praying in the desert with cactus and sand". The speech bubbles up on top are God "answering" his prayer for a child. In case you can't tell, they say, "OK, I HEARD YOU".