Recitation Questions

[Bluemountainmama]

I have just started looking at our materials for next fall and I have a few questions about recitation that I'm hoping some of you might be able to help me with.

1. When I ask my student a question should I expect her to answer in a complete sentence or just give the answer. For example, would she say "seven" or "There are seven days in a week." if I asked her how many days are in a week?

2. If my student already knows the answer to that recitation question before the school year begins should I skip it, make it harder or just ask it anyway?

3. I am teaching a kindergartner and a first grader. I have decided to do reading, math and copywork on their own levels. We will do enrichment together. Is recitation a good place to combine too or does the recitation material really reinforce what they are learning in the rest of their programs?

Thanks!

[armymom]

I am doing the K recitation with my dd. I can say that the info is sort of related to what we are doing, but it is also good general information, so it probably doesn't hurt to know even if it isn't directly related. Also, I can say that is a large overlap from Jr. K to K, so there might be from K to 1 also. Secondly, I find it useful to ask at least once with everything. There were things I thought my dd knew, but didn't know as well as I thought! I am more informal and don't do everything every week necessarily.

In all that, though, I am sure that you can run a single recitation. Either you can have them both learning from the same list or you can alternate who you are questioning, but with consistancy it is amazing what they can remember. You might even find that your kids can have both lists cold by the end of the year from listening to each other recite. I let her do one word answers to keep up the speed, that way we are shooting for instant respone memory. I look for complete sentences in other places.

Lena

[KF2000]

My advice on recitations is a little different, so hopefully you can pick what works best for you and your kiddos. First let me say that I am not currently doing MP K or 1st, but hopefully the advice is still good.

We do require recitations to be in complete sentence answers. While the younger grades may only have one set of recitations, as the grades go up, you begin to have a recitation in grammar and latin...which require very exact answers. Also, since we do Catechism, they are expected to have complete, rote answers for that as well. Therefore, I would think complete answers would be good preparation for those types of work down the road.

Also, their experience with Catechism is that the questions repeat from one year to the next, often building in complexity from one year to the next, so we do not drop any just because they know them. We may review them only periodically, but they are not completely skipped. I would take the same approach to recitations....the ones they know, drop to a "review category" but not skipped altogether.

Just another set of ideas for you!
AMDG,
Sarah