Two Lessons
by John Ciardi
I.
A frightful Scowl met an Owl sitting in a tree.
The Owl said, "Who?"
---If it was you
who answered, "It is me,"
Then hide your face. You're in disgrace.
And the next time you reply
to a bird in a tree
Don't say, "It is me."
Say, properly, "It is I."
II.
People who say nooz for news
Must think that kittens' cries are moos.
Kittens, properly, say mew,
Rhyming it, properly, with you.
Copying
Now that you've had your grammar lesson from one of our favorite poets, sit back, relax and get ready for our simpler, gentler ways to learn grammar and the art of writing. Here's how we do it! After reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, I realized something that I later heard some home schoolers say...that the best way to learn to write, is to copy other great writers! Aha! We can do this! So for our first language arts lesson, COPY! As the little ones learn to sit at the table with us and "do their lessons", they begin to copy everything they see older brother or sister writing...numbers, letters, words, sentences. This is our first introduction to the language arts lessons. The children will copy simple words or sentences and soon paragraphs from Bible verses, poetry, or good books. They may copy a simple recipe, grocery list for mother, or a list of birthday "wishes." All of this leads them to understand that writing is something we do every day and that it is very important to us. I insist that our children write every day.
Dictation
I have found that not all of our five children learn in the same manner. Some can copy anything they see, and some lose their place on the page and skip things. Although I still require copying, I have found that dictation works better for some of them. I do the same as for copying, only I will read the poem, sentences, verses and then they will write it down in their best writing. We strive for neatness, accuracy, good spelling, good punctuation, and capitilization. As you can see, these things are for the older student. I wouldn't ask a first grader to take a dictation when he's hardly started to learn to read. I would however, ask my 3rd or 4th grader to take a dictation if I thought he was able to spell most of the words. I would allow the child to first read through the verse or sentences himself and then take the dictation, trying to hear where the periods would go. After taking the dictation, the child will hear me read it through again. Then he may check it over himself, looking for things that don't "look right." When he thinks he's got a good copy, he may check it with the original to see how he did.
Spelling Lists
Often we will make customized spelling lists with words which are missed in the writing lesson. At times I will add other words that are spelled similarly to the words missed. For example: If the word "patch" was missed, I might also add the words catch, fetch, and stitch to the list of spelling words. When I feel that the child has mastered his list, we begin anew. If there is a troublesome word left, it is added to the next week's list.
Variety
I like to make sure that when the children are writing, they are writing things that are interesting to them. I often let them pick their favorite part of the book they are reading for a copy or dictation. They may choose to copy their favorite cookie recipe into their copybooks or instructions on "How to Make a Cornhusk Doll." Maybe your little boy needs a list of tools and materials he needs to build a bird feeder. All of these things, we have truly done in our home school. When the children are interested in the writing, they are so much more willing to write. And to me, this is the goal of writing...to have the "want to" or the "need to."
One year I had each of our children (who were able to write) copy or make up instructions. Our daughter Grace copied the Andreola's "How To Make a Corn Husk Doll" instructions. John made his instructions on "How to Make an Ant Farm" which he later used for a 4-H demonstration. Adam wrote instructions on "How to Change Oil in Your Vehicle." Do you see how practical these writings are? They are not only of special interest to each individual child, but are useful as well. The children even included hand-drawn pictures to go with their instructions.
Since there are four boys in our family, I know that not all little boys have time or patience to sit still and write. Our boys tend to wiggle lots and bounce their legs around and tap pencils on the table and look out the window and make car or animal sounds. Does this sound familiar? These are just a few more reasons to give your children a reason to write.
Our middle son, John loves animals and decided that he'd like to be like Teddy Roosevelt and keep a book of all the animals that he studies. So most of his writing lessons are about animals. Often these are dictations from books he has read on a particular animal. John seems to do better with dictations, so most of his writings happen in this manner.
Seth likes to draw pictures of horses and animals. He keeps a folder of all his horses of different kinds and he gives each picture a name. Just the fact that he writes a title above his drawings or a little sentence or two on the back describing it, shows how simply language is learned. He was a first grader when he began his project.
Joseph is our kindergarten student and finds very little time to write. He'd rather play Legos or make runways with our dominoes. I do get him to play with letter tiles and make words with them. I may have him copy a word or two from his letter tile words. At other times he will want to write a letter to someone or write a story. At these times, I will take dictation FROM him and copy it down. He loves to hear his stories which he has made up read over and over to him. Often he will then color pictures to go with his stories and make a simple book by stapling all the colored pages and dictation together. This is the beginning of a child making sense of language.
In my humble opinion, I think that children under the 5th grade level, do not need any more language arts than what I have mentioned thus far. They learn so naturally to put periods at the ends of sentences, to capitalize names, to start sentences with capital letters, to spell and become familiar with the written language. While they are learning so many new things...reading, writing, and simple math, I feel they do not need the burdon of formal grammar lessons.
I really do like the book You Can Teach Your Child Successfully by Ruth Beechick. In her book, she has many lessons which are samples of how to do this type of writing lesson with your children. When I discovered this method, I first used her examples from the book and had great success. Then I learned to do the same with the very books and subjects we were studying. I highly recommend this book for all subjects, but particularly for the language, spelling, and writing sections. I also like her book called Language and Thinking For Young Children for children ages 4-8. There are many exercises (especially the manners section) which our entire family has done together! It's a very gentle introduction for young children into the art of language.
Narration
To me, narration is just a perfect tool for showing that one knows what he has learned as well as a way to express himself in oral speech or as a written "essay" of sorts. First of all, what is narration? Narration can be different things from very formal to very casual. We use both in our home school.
Casual narration would be what I like to do with the younger children, but I do not throw it out altogether for my older children either. I might just ask little Joseph, "What do you think this parable is about? Why did Jesus say, 'If you have faith as a mustard seed?'" I may ask another child to re-tell the Aesop's Fable "The Lion and the Mouse" in his own words. Some days it's fun for the children to "tell" their story by acting it out, rather than "reciting". My children enjoyed acting out the parable of The Good Samaritan and many others. We even got out the dress-up clothes to dress the parts! If I use casual narration with my older children, I may just ask them what they read about in their books today or what happened with The Princess in the book Laddie. I feel too often we think that narrations must always be formally written out and "just so," but in reality, often our children just want to share the joy of what they have just read in their stories. I love sharing good books with others, don't you? When you do, you are narrating too!!
Another idea for informal narration might be a demonstration of what was learned if the book was about a subject like bird watching or cooking or horsmanship. This demonstration might be a completed project like a bird house, a pie, or a diagram of the parts of a horse which was completed by the child.
Some children may like to draw a picture of what the main setting of the story might have looked like...a farmhouse and barn surrounded by a split rail fence and tall grasses dotted with wildflowers. Your child may even find a good paragraph from the story and draw, paint or color a picture of it.
Although some children aren't good at oral narrations and may like to "tell" of their books and stories in the ways suggested above, I really do feel that they should learn to give oral narrations also. It doesn't hurt any of us to be able to fluently tell of something we know...even if it is just to our family around the supper table.
Formal narration in our home school would be a written narration. After asking a young child to tell you about the Aesop's Fable, you may wish to write down what he says in a special copybook which is all his own. This book of his "tellings" can be a very nice treasure to him because they are HIS stories. As the child grows older, he may wish to copy a narration you have copied down for him in his own handwriting.
For our older children, I may ask them to write a book review on the finished novel. Often I will have them go to Amazon.com to write it "for real"...for a purpose...to give someone else a reason to read or not to read the book they've just finished. Of course, I have them print me a copy of it too. Some of their reviews have been added to Amazon's book reviews! It's fun for them to see that they were "accepted" by the company! Other times they may write their book reviews on a book message board. Our 15 year old daughter has her own website called Books & Boots where she loves writing book reviews.
Sometimes I have the older children do character sketches of one person/character in their story. Other times I may have them write about their favorite chapter of the book. Another choice is to require a written essay about the book. I allow a fair amount of time for completing it. I usually require a brief outline of the essay before they begin, just so they learn to organize their thoughts on paper.
I would like to add here that we must not require our children to be constantly narrating. Sometimes our children will bawk at the thought of listening to a fable or chapter because they know they will have to give a "run-down" of the story to their mother. When this happens, ease up a bit and just enjoy the good stories and books for what they are. I usually have a read-aloud book going which I read from most nights to the family. I never make them narrate from this...it is simply for pleasure, although they may learn something from it too!
Favorite Books for Narration
for Young Children
Bible
Tomie DePaola's Book of the Old Testament
Parables of Jesus by Tomie De Paola
Tomie De Paola's Nursery Tales (and other books by him)
Aesop's Fables
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Children's Book of Virtues by William Bennett
Book of Virtues by Bennett
Jungle Doctor Fables by Paul White
The Great Race by Paul Goble (and others by him)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit (and others) by Beatrix Potter
These are just a few that we especially like. I've found that the little children enjoy picture books and short stories. Their attention spans are so short, that I feel we should accommodate them the best we can. I also allow the children to play with Legos or building blocks or embroider or draw if they are fairly quiet...this is especially helpful for wiggley boys!
Grammar
At about the 5th or 6th grade, we may begin a more formal grammar study. Remember, we have already learned many lessons in grammar by our very casual writing lessons above. I truly LOVE the book called Simply Grammar by Karen Andreola. Our entire family enjoys doing these lessons together. The younger children who really aren't ready for formal grammar lessons just enjoy sitting in on the older children's lessons because we do most of them orally.
I like the picture lessons where the student looks at the picture given and then is asked to tell a story about the picture in the past tense, present tense, future tense. Isn't this a fun way to learn grammar? Plus the child is involved in "creating" part of the grammar lesson by his involvement in it. We used Simply Grammar only once a week and I was amazed at how much the children could retain when we reviewed some of the lessons!
I also like the Learning Language Arts Through Literature program mostly because it is a very similar way of learning language as we have done from the very beginning. I think the book selections are excellent and the selections chosen are very appropriate to the lessons to be learned. I like how the child takes a dictation of the selection, finds mistakes he's made, finds the misspelled words, and possibly finds the nouns in the passage (or other parts of speech). To me, this method makes very much sense. I simply do not like the textbook method much at all.
Although I do use these Language Arts books, I am still very fond of allowing our children to write in a free-style manner. In this way, they become accustomed to putting their thoughts on paper and then going back over them to make proper corrections in punctuation, spelling, word agreement, tense and such things. There can be no replacement for this type of work in my opinion.
We do have The Rod and Staff English Handbook which we use for reference. This is especially handy when writing research papers or when the child has troubles with word usage (ie. lay/lie).
So far, this is our method of learning language arts. I was told by one of my favorite English teachers some years ago that to expose children to very good literature is the best way to teach them language arts. The students see how to make language beautiful, to make it flow, to give it order and meaning. I have always taken this advice to heart and feel it has been very useful and practical to our home schooling.
Above all things, I believe that when you are seeking methods to help your children succeed in their writings, narrations, and language lessons, call upon the name of the Lord and He will direct your path. Each child is unique and each deserves to be taught as such.
Blessings upon your paths,
Jody
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