Charlotte Mason Education: Language arts

Language Arts
Charlotte believed in the simple method to teaching language arts. Parents also find this method of language arts very appealing; instead of spending endless hours drilling grammar facts and correcting workbook pages the parents need only teach three natural parts to language arts.
The first is narration which is retelling what is read.
The second is dictation which is writing down what is read to you.
The third is copywork which is copying directly from books.

Narration
Narration is the act of collecting information and retelling it in your own words. How often have you asked a new person their name only to forget it a minute later? We forget because we do not make a conscience effort to remember what we hear. Anyone would remember a new person’s name if they knew they would have to get up in front of a group of people and introduce that person. Ms. Mason uses the illustration of a sick person in the hospital. A patient is in the hospital suffering from intense pain and the doctor has written the remedy on a piece of paper. He tells her this will alleviate the pain, however, he’s only going to let her look at the card for a few minutes. Then the card will be destroyed permanently, and he won’t be writing it for her ever again. We can all imagine the close attention she would give to the information written on that card. This is the kind of attention Ms. Mason wants the children to have towards their reading.

How to Narrate
Start by choosing a comfortable place where you and your child can share a good story. Begin by reading 10-15 minutes at a time for each book read. Although most children are capable of longer reading sessions short reading are essential for maintaining their complete attention. Don’t stop to explain or define words unless the child asks for a definition. After the reading is complete give the child your full attention and ask her to tell you about what you just read. If she is reluctant to speak you may probe her by asking some starting questions such as: tell me about the butterfly in the story, or tell me five things the children did in this chapter. Children also enjoy drawing pictures of the story and narrating through this art work.
Don’t correct your child’s narration if she makes mistakes or embellishes the story. Next time shorten the reading time so she will have every opportunity to tell the story back more accurately.
Children will practice oral narration until age 10 at which time they begin to practice narration through writing. Do not bog your child down with worries of punctuation and spelling during her written narration time. Simply let her express herself through the narration process and you can make the corrections of punctuation and spelling at a different lesson.

Dictation
Each day choose a sentence, paragraph or page for the child to dictate. The amount chosen depends on the age of the child. Read the passage out loud to the child and give her ample time to write it down. She should concentrate on completing her very best work. The child will continue to work on her writing all week long; correcting her mistakes of punctuation, capitalization and penmanship until the finished product looks just like the original. By the end of the week the young student will know the passage of literature so well that she will be able to recite it from memory. This is a great way to cement into memory bible passages and great pieces of literature.

Copywork
Daily copy work is used to practice good handwriting, grammar, spelling etc… Keep a special notebook for your child’s bible verses, poems, and important quotes. She should do her best job to make her writing look just like the original. If she makes a mistake than she will correct it and continue to work on it all week unit she gets a finished product that is worth keeping.