Charlotte Mason's Language Arts system was and is very practical. It all starts with the living books you are reading with your children.

A Living book is to me defined as one that you and the children don’t want to put down. Not all living books are found hidden away in the dark and dusty shelf of a second hand book dealer.

In this day there is no excuse for us not to give our children living ideas for their brains to feast on. We have books by the tons. Our challenge is not to allow the heaps of twaddle to find their way into our book baskets.

What is twaddle? Stories about the silliness of others, cheap illustrations and foolish text. On the other side of the seesaw is the living book , which calls the child to a higher standard, challenges our thinking and feeds our thought environment.

The Charlotte Mason language arts system explained simplistically is this:

Read good books to your children

Get them to tell back to you in their own words what you have just read to them. (Narration)

Let them do dictation from the good books they are reading and add to their spelling lists any words they struggle with.

Grammar can be taught using Simply Grammar by Karen Andreola.

Let them copy passages from the Living book where they will learn the flow of the English language and this will improve their script at the same time.

Copy work can also be from a poem you are studying or your Bible reading.

A side bar – even though I completed an English degree at university I had no idea of how to teach grammar and spelling rules. It was important for me to have some guide or reference when it came to teaching my own children correct language usage.

This is another area where Sonlight has helped me, as well as Ruth Beechick’s book – You Can Teach Your Child Successfully.

Why Narration for language arts?

This topic is much discussed but it is as simple as the child telling back to you what they have just learnt through your reading.

A child under 6 should not be called upon to recount anything. They will do this naturally about something they have seen or heard.

Narration should be used for almost everything and should be done everyday. After reading a good book, historical literature, a nature walk or find, a science experiment, art, music or something similar.

Narrations for the younger children are normally oral or drawn. For older children it is written, the length depending on the age of the child.

“But one who tries this method on himself will find that in the act of narrating every power of his mind comes into play.”

“The child of six has a definite quantity of consecutive reading, say forty pages per term, from a well written, well considered, large volume which is also well illustrated.... The teacher does not talk much and is careful never to interrupt a child who is called upon to tell, the first effort may be stumbling but presently the children get into their stride and tell a passage at length and with surprising fluency.” Charlotte Mason

Other pages that you may be interested in:

Creating a homeschool timetable
Your daily schedule
Phonics and Grammar Programs

---

Return to top of Language Arts