We chose a poem from The Children's Book of Virtues for Norah to memorize.

I got the idea from The Well Trained Mind, originally, but I am not following their advice exactly. I adapted the memorization techniques to better suit Norah.

I recorded the poem a few times on a tape for Norah and I also typed it out. We keep the print out of the poem in our pile of school books, so we will see it and remember to practice it everyday.

Norah reads the poem once without the tape, then we play the tape and she says the poem along with it a few times.

Eventually, Norah will know the poem well enough to start practicing without the tape or the paper. At that point, I will make her stand up and stand still, etc. We will also work on eye contact, posture and expression. I plan to let her dress up and recite this for her dad after dinner one night. We're keeping the audience small since it will be Norah's first recitation. I'll video tape it and post it here in a week, so you all can see it.