We each have a memory work notebook, and we just work through the day’s stuff together. Each day we will visit the daily tab, even or odd according to the date, the day of the week, and the date. This isn’t my original idea, but I morphed Sonya Shafer’s plan for a memory work box into this notebook.
It takes about twenty-five minutes if we all keep our happy hearts and just do the job. If I take a phone call or answer a text, the routine is broken and everyone is cranky. If we follow the rails of habit we have created, all is well, and we move on to the Loop of Beautiful Things and then our individual studies.
Even though each boy has a notebook and turns pages to keep on track with where we are, only one of the three strictly follows each line and reads every word aloud until he doesn’t need to anymore. That’s the one who remembers what he SEES (like I do). Another remembers what he HEARS, and he mostly listens and recites along, looking down at his page as he stumbles. The third is constantly moving as we work through the material… tapping or bouncing as he recites. He isn’t distracting, but he isn’t still. It is the movement that helps him remember.
Keep in mind that my youngest is ten years old. I’ve been using the same methods for morning time for the last four years, and for most of that time all of my boys have been readers. If I were going to memorize as a group with children who could not yet read fluently, I’d have to change my methods. There was a time when I was the only one with a notebook. Then, I would read a line or sentence, and they would recite it back to me. Or we would sing together, and the songs would quickly become familiar. We accomplished less material in a year, only switching up poems, hymns, scripture and songs every twelve weeks or so.
But there is a lot of progress that is made in those little bits. Every line learned makes the next easier and adds to the storehouse of language in the mind – new images, vocabulary, phrases.