The richest stretch of the Charlotte Mason years. Children now read most of their own schoolbooks, written narration begins around age 10, dictation replaces simple copywork, and Plutarch and Shakespeare enter the feast.
The morning is still all short lessons, but they stretch a little longer and grow more demanding. A typical week moves through Bible and recitation, math, dictation or written narration, history, science and natural history, literature, a foreign language, and the riches — picture study, composer study, the nature journal, handicrafts, and poetry.
Afternoons stay free for a weekly nature outing, handicrafts done to a real standard, instrument practice, personal free reading, and genuine household responsibility.
Gradually hand the schoolbooks over for the child to read independently — but keep narration after every reading. Around age 10, begin replacing one oral narration a week with a written one. Don't correct spelling and grammar in those early written narrations; fluency of thought comes first. Mechanics are trained separately, in dictation: the child studies a short passage until they can spell every word, then you dictate it once and catch any error instantly, before a wrong spelling can lodge in the memory.
“The question is not, — how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education — but how much does he care?”
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