September 14, 2007, Newsletter Issue #193: Narration Starters

Tip of the Week

Are you content with your nightly reading to your child? He or she will benefit more from the reading, and probably enjoy it as well, if you discuss the reading afterwards.

Here are some typical questions or conversation starter's teachers' use to prompt their students after completing a reading that you might use with your child:

• Tell me all that you remember about the passage, in your own words
• Wasn't it funny when ____! What else do you remember?
• What do you think about __________?
• Explain how ________.
• Did you learn anything new?
• What are five things you learned about _____?
• Tell me all you know about (a particular character). (Analyzing Character)
• How did Character A behave differently than Character B? (Parallel Characters)
• Why did you learn about (a particular character) in this chapter? (Analyzing Character)
• Why did (a particular character) do ____? (Character Point of View)
• Tell me all you know about ____ (location)
• Tell me all you know about ___ (occurrence)
• How did (a particular character) feel? (Analyzing mood)
• What makes this story "pretend"? (Fantasy vs. Reality)
• What clues told you that ___was about to happen? (Making inferences)
• Why do you think ___happened? (Drawing conclusions)
• Tell me exactly what happened in order. (Sequencing)
• What do you think of ___? (Making judgments)
• Describe the person telling the story. (Narrator's point of view)
• Tell the most interest thing about ___. (Fact vs. Opinion)
• Describe what happened because of ___. (Cause and Effect)
• Tell me all the ways ___and ____ were different/same. (Compare & Contrast)
• Is the ending/chapter good or bad and why? (Making judgments)
• Compare the actions of (two characters). (Compare and Contrast)
• Compare this book with another of similar style. (Compare and Contrast)
• Compare this book with another by the same author.
• Why did the author write the story this way? (Author's Point of View)
• How did the author know about these kinds of things? (Author's Point of View)
• What was the author saying about _____? (Author's Point of View)

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Thanks so much for reading the the Homeschool Tips Newsletter.

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Sincerely

Sarita Holzmann
President
Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd.