HOW I DECIDE WHEN MY CHILDREN CAN WRITE THEIR NARRATIONS

Honestly, for my daughter, I can’t remember. But for my son, I’ve learned a few things.

A couple of years ago, his sentences were structured all crazy. He also narrated in such a way that he’d miss out on some important details. Sometimes he narrated in everyday common, informal words. I knew he wasn’t ready.

Now, he narrates in a such a way that the structure of his sentences sound just right. In fact they sound very, very good. He has varied sentence beginnings and he uses words properly and formally.

Now, he has to learn to condense the story down more. I’m trying to have him summarize the beginning, the middle, and the end. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And every child can tell you what those are. And my 9 year old can tell me what those are too, but to identify what those are and to word those three parts with transitions so that they flow together, even though the details aren’t there, does take another level of skill. That’s what I’m working on with him.

My daughter is already there.

She has moved on to creating an outline from her summation. I’ll probably talk about that tomorrow.