Homeschooling Downunder
Loving books is the first step to teaching reading. From infancy we have read to our children and all of them love books.
The right age to teach reading varies in each child. All four of my children have worked on a different learning timetable gaining fluency in reading from the age of 6 to nearly 10. By fluency I mean confident to read an easy novel like Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven.
Great debate surrounds how we to teach reading. We started with a strong phonics program that was very labour intensive. We switched to a more relaxed approach for the last two children.
Read Aloud from ‘living books’. Sometimes the book that is being read is beyond the younger ones. I still read the book and get the younger ones into the habit of listening. I read for about 60-90mins, 3-4 times per week. I choose at least one book each from the following categories;
• The Bible (I usually use some sort of study guide for children).
• A Christian novel, historical novel, Christian biography or a contemporary novel with good morals.
• A fact based reader; nature history or geography. I make my choice based on what we are studying in history.
While the children are being read to they are allowed to occupy themselves quietly. From time to time we stop for oral narrations and for the older ones we sometimes require written narrations.
Are you wondering what to read? Our living booklists will give you some suggestions.
Narration is the simple telling back of what has been read. Narrations can be oral or written. Narration helps the child think through the passage they are narrating and then take out as much as they can from it.
It is a memory, comprehension and concentration skill. A six year old can tell you a whole lot more during an oral narration than they can if they had to write it and ask you to spell every word.
The teacher does not talk much and is careful never to interrupt a child who is called upon to 'tell.' The first efforts may be stumbling but presently the children get into their 'stride' and 'tell' a passage at length with surprising fluency. The teacher probably allows other children to correct any faults in the telling when it is over. The teacher's own really difficult part is to keep up sympathetic interest by look and occasional word, by remarks upon a passage that has been narrated, by occasionally showing pictures, and so on. But she will bear in mind that the child of six has begun the serious business of his education, that it does not matter much whether he understands this word or that, but that it matters a great deal that he should learn to deal directly with books. Charlotte Mason
Use oral narration with your children until they are about 10 years old. Read aloud a small passage (a paragraph) and have your child tell back what you just read in your own words. Do this immediately after the reading. As your child develops this skill you can increase the amount of material that is read.
You do not need to do this for all of your reading but rather choose the books that you will use. Sometimes my kids are so good at remembering details it takes longer to hear the narration than it did for me to read the passage. At other times they can't remember anything.
You can start to teach written narration from about 10. This will probably take a while to develop.
Narration gives children something to write about and it is great preparation for more advanced writing.
For more writing ideas see
Getting Our Six Year Old To Write