I have some very exciting news that I’m so happy to share!

I’m delighted to be able to announce at last the big project I have been working on for a while. I have hinted at this a few times, always thinking that it wouldn’t be long before I was ready to talk about it, but the time hasn’t been quite right, until now. For over two years I have been working (and continue to work) on a book that deals with a topic that is very dear to my heart: narration.

A whole book about narration?

Yes, a whole book about narration.

Narration is a valuable educational method, and absolutely integral to a Charlotte Mason education. Narration is closely linked to knowing. Charlotte Mason assured us, “Let the boy read and he knows, that is, if he must tell again what he has read.”

Know and Tell unfolds all the whys and wherefores that lie behind the use of narration. It lays out the entire process from beginning to end, and discloses objectives for each stage. It gives you the tools you need to move from one stage to the next, offers guidelines that provide a framework to evaluate progress, and is packed with real-life narrations as examples of what you might expect. I’m looking forward to sharing a bit more about my new book with you over the next several weeks, as we anticipate publication. (No, it’s not available yet.)

As I became more confident in the way that narration works and saw the results, I have continually tried to encourage others to persevere and see it work for them. I’ve shared my suggestions piecemeal in answer to all kinds of questions. In Know and Tell, I’ve tried to gather that experience together and to anticipate those questions. I hope to  give you the tools you need to feel confident in using a method that is very different from the worksheets, quizzes, and tests that are the usual apparatus of teaching and learning. When I began using narration, I knew no one who had followed the process all the way through, but that is no longer the case. You get the benefit of seeing how this has worked with real children.

Charlotte Mason said that “education is the science of relations,” and I am convinced that narration is a relationship-building exercise. I want to show you how it works so that you can realize its full potential.

The release is tentatively scheduled for January 2018, and for the next  several weeks, I’ll be sharing things about narration each week that will give you a peek into what you can expect to find in Know and Tell. I trust that it will be a book that you can refer to again and again for encouragement and guidance as your children practice the art of narration year by year. I’m so pleased that this resource will available soon, and I hope you are, too.