using narration to increase focus and ability to "tell what happened in my day", etc.

[DebonLI]

I'm looking for tips to gently teach my 9 year old how to narrate. She can't tell us what she does in Sunday school, at a play date, etc. She will cop out by saying "I don't know!" but I know it's just too hard for her. I think the practice of narration will be the key to helping her. Do any of you have tips, know of products or have any advice that would help me?

"Officially" she's PPD-nos with language delays and some sensory issues. She's a sensory seeking kid. She's also be dx'd with auditory processing disorder and had AIT, which seemed to help.

Thanks,
Debbie

[Carol in Cal.]

If so, you can read her one chapter a day of a book that is a little ahead of her level, and at the start of each session, summarize what has happened so far. Gradually she will start to learn to summarize material and you can start having her do the oral summary on alternating days or something like that. Modelling this is really the easiest way to teach it, I think.

[coralloyd]

Start small- read only one or two paragraphs and then have her narrate, read another two ect... This is what worked with my dd. I am also sure to tell her it is coming, and I will only read the passage once.

[VinNY]

I highly recommend a book I have had for years that has helped my children that struggle with narration etc (we have severe APD, speech and dyspraxia issues with some of ours) "Listen, my childre, and you shall hear by Betty Lou Kratoville (Pro-Ed Publishers. I have Book 1 and bought it cheap. Maybe you can find it used because the revised editions seem to be pricey.

Ir is a manual of stories and exercises designed to help children develop listening skills, auditory mempory, vocabulary and imagination (taken from inside book).

HTH,
Virginia

[MamaSheep]

I've found it helpful with my Aspie son to break my questions down into smaller increments. What did you do in Sunday school was too big a question, and he wasn't good at sorting out a main point well enough to say "we talked about prayer" or whatever. It helped when I started asking things like "What was the first thing you did at your playdate?" or "What was the funniest thing that happened in Sunday school?" so that he only had to come up with ONE single thing that happened instead of trying to sort through a whole hour's worth of events and feel like he either had to list them, or else try to formulate a summary, both of which were just beyond his language skills. It also helped to tell him up front what I'd be asking about afterward. "When you get home I'll ask you what the first thing you did there was, so pay attention so you can tell me," or "I wonder if anything funny will happen in Sunday school today. I bet if you keep your eyes open you'll see at least one funny thing." And then praise him for telling me even if it seemed like a really strange or irrelevant detail so that he'd feel confident that I wasn't going to scold or make fun of him no matter what he said. That helped him be more willing to at least TRY to give me a report. Then once he was pretty consistently able to tell me one thing that happened I pushed it up to two things, "tell me the first and last things that happened," for example, or "tell me two things that your teacher talked about during your Sunday school lesson". At first I got some fairly strange responses (along the lines of 'my teacher talked about Jimmy's shoelace and later he said he had a dog when he was a kid and his dog ate bugs' or something like that when I knew the lesson was about Noah or whatever), but over time he got better at it, and can now actually give me a reasonable summary of his activities and lessons. It has also helped to talk to whatever adult was supervising the activity and ask about specific events ds might have seen or participated in so that I can ask him very specific leading questions. It helps him know what other people think is relevant from the activity. "Did it startle you when Billy fell off the swing? I heard Johnny went down the tall slide, did you try that too? Your teacher said you talked about Jonah, what did you think about that big fish?" That sort of thing.

Ds has improved big time over when he was younger and always gave the "I don't know" and "I don't remember" responses. He still has a long way to go, but I at least feel now like if something "untoward" happened he would at least be able and willing to report it to me (which was one of my concerns about turning him over to other people when he couldn't formulate even a basic report as to what had happened while I was away). It's frustrating, though, I know. Good luck!