School Launch

School Launch · For parents

Tell Me a Story

A narration time with the screen shut. Your child invents a story, or tells back a book you have just read aloud. You listen, and you write down the words. No machine tells the story for you.

How narration works

In the classical classroom, and in Charlotte Mason’s schools, narration is the child’s own telling. After a short reading, or instead of one, the child speaks the tale in order. The parent’s pencil is the only record. That is the whole method: attention, speech, then the written words as the child said them.

We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.Psalm 78:4 (KJV)

Read this page once, print the cards, and put the screen away before you begin. Ten or fifteen minutes is plenty. A young child may give you four sentences. An older student may give you a page. Both are a real narration.

  1. Choose the piece. A starter from the age lists below, three slips from the picker, or a passage you just read from a book on the reading lists. One fable or one scene is enough. Do not ask for a whole book.
  2. The child tells. You write. Use the child’s words, including a repeated phrase or a plain “and then.” Do not stop to fix grammar. Do not offer a better ending while the child is still speaking.
  3. If the telling stalls, wait. Then ask only one question: “What happened next?” or “What did he do?” Do not supply the event.
  4. Read it back. The child hears his or her own story. One added sentence is welcome. Save the writing lesson for another day. This day is for telling.
  5. Keep the page. A folder of narrations shows how the child’s mind is growing. It is not a grade.

Invented stories on this page stay close to home: work, courage, a kept promise, care for a neighbor, wonder at weather and growing things. Skip cruel jokes. If a retelling comes from an old book, leave the old book as it is. Do not update the people, the faith, or the moral to match the present day.

Story starters

Pick one. Read it aloud, then close the page. The child tells what happens. You write.

Kindergarten–Grade 2

  1. The red hen finds a button on the lane. What does she do with it?
  2. Rain starts while you carry the eggs home. Who shares a cloak?
  3. The lamb will not come through the gate. How does the child bring him in?
  4. The kitchen fire has gone out before supper. What happens next?
  5. A seed is planted in a cracked cup. Who comes to see what grows?
  6. The chapel bell rings early. Why, and who runs to hear it?

Grades 3–5

  1. Two brothers have one good coat and a long cold walk. How do they share it?
  2. The village well is low. What do the neighbors do before dark?
  3. A girl promised to watch the sheep, and then she hears a bell in the wood. Does she leave them?
  4. A letter arrives with no name, only a map of the lane. Who sent it?
  5. A boy mends a torn net. What does the fisherman find in it at dawn?
  6. A plank on the footbridge is loose. Who warns the cart before it crosses?

Grades 6–8

  1. A watchman sleeps at his post and wakes to a footprint inside the gate, which is still shut. What does he do?
  2. A ship’s boy must keep the lamp lit, and the oil is nearly gone. What does he choose?
  3. Two friends disagree about telling a hard truth. How can the story end with both of them still honest?
  4. A poor house feeds a traveler. In the morning he can pay them or slip away. What does he do?
  5. An old map does not match the valley you see from the hill. Which do you trust, and what do you risk?
  6. A messenger is offered money to deliver the letter a day late. What does the delay cost?

Character, setting, and problem

When you want a fresh tale and not a set starter, roll one die three times, or draw one slip from each of three bowls. The first roll is the person, the second is the place, and the third is the trouble. Read the three lines once. Then the child tells, and you write. Six of each, so a cube die is enough. Cut the same lists from the printable cards if you would rather draw slips.

1 · Who

  1. a shepherd boy
  2. a baker’s daughter
  3. a ship’s boy
  4. a grandmother
  5. a faithful hound
  6. a king’s messenger

2 · Where

  1. a stone cottage
  2. a harbor at first light
  3. a path through the woods
  4. a walled garden
  5. a chapel on a hill
  6. the market square

3 · What goes wrong

  1. a promise nearly broken
  2. a lamb gone through a gap in the hedge
  3. a storm on the way
  4. a hungry stranger at the door
  5. a tool that snaps
  6. a truth that must be told

Retell a book you already have

These are public-domain books already on the reading lists. Read a short piece aloud from your own copy. Shut the book. Ask for the telling described here, and write what you hear. The link under each title opens that book’s band on the list.

  • Aesop’s Fables (Kindergarten–Grade 2). After one fable, the child tells who wanted something, what was done, and what the last line teaches. Do not invent a new ending. Aesop’s fables are old; the tradition places Aesop in the sixth century B.C.
  • The Blue Fairy Book (Kindergarten–Grade 2). Andrew Lang’s book retells many of the household tales the Grimm brothers gathered, first published in A.D. 1812. After one short tale, the child tells what happened first, next, and last. One clear picture is enough.
  • Heidi (Grades 3–5). After a chapter, the child tells where Heidi is, who is kind to her, and one thing she notices about the mountain or the people.
  • The Wind in the Willows (Grades 3–5). The child tells what Mole, Rat, or Toad wanted in this chapter, and whether that wish was wise.
  • Robinson Crusoe (Grades 6–8). Daniel Defoe published the book in A.D. 1719. After a chapter, the student tells what Crusoe lacked, what he made with his hands, and what he thought about God or his own soul. Stay inside the chapter just read.
  • The Pilgrim’s Progress (Grades 6–8). The student tells where Christian is on the road, what danger he met, and what helped him go on. Keep the book’s own names.

A narration of Scripture can use the same shape. After a short passage from Genesis, a Psalm, or a Gospel, the child tells what happened and what it shows about God. The Kindergarten–Grade 2 list begins with the Bible for that reason.

Print the cards and a page to write on

The printable has the die lists, the story-starter cards, and a “My story” page with lines for the narration. Print it, cut the cards if you like, and keep a pencil with them. The telling itself uses paper, not a screen.

Download the printable (PDF)

Nothing on this page is saved, and nothing your child says is sent anywhere. The narration lives on the paper you keep.

← For parents