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Analytical Grammar or Our Mother Tongue
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I was wondering how Analytical Grammar is CM friendly. I’ve been looking at it for my ds who is going on 13. He has had VERY little grammar instruction. I’ve also been looking at Our Mother Tongue- a guide to english grammar.
The thing that draws me to Our Mother Tongue is the beautiful writings throughout, the fact that it is Christian based, and that it’s not “work-booky”. Although I’m not very good at teaching grammar and know that I might need more examples for practice and a bit more structure to stay on course.
However, Analytical Grammar seems like it might be more of a complete grammar course. It also appears to be very solid in that they continue to review and repeat what they’ve already learned as to not forget anything.
The reason I’m asking how it is CM friendly is because it looks like it might be a lot of filling in the blanks, long lessons, and a bit cumbersome.
Analytical Grammar costs much more than Our Mother Tongue, therefore I would love to hear anyones experience with it thus far.
Thanks so much! Again, I can’t say it enough ~You are all a blessing. 🙂
Heather
We have never used Analytical Grammar, but my daughter (15) is using Our Mother Tongue. She really enjoys it, but I think it went a little overboard on sentence diagramming. It had some very detailed diagramming that I don’t remember doing in school!! 🙂 We have used the schedule they have set up on AO, so she doesn’t do it weekly. Hope that helps a little.
Steffanie
I had never seen Our Mother Tongue before. I really like it. We used Jr. Analytical Grammar, and though my kids did learn a great deal, I like the approach in Our Mother Tongue much better. I love that she has some history about our language and she includes some Latin. It keeps it from being such a dry subject. We are definitely going to use this for my Jr. High ds. Thanks so much for mentioning it.
Kelley
Steffanie ~
Forgive me for my ignorance 🙂 but could you tell me what AO is. I’m very interested in checking out the schedule for this that you mentioned.
Blessings,
Heather
Heather,
AO refers to Ambelside Online. They have each year layed out for you to follow. I just checked the schedule on this book for yr. 7 and they had the child do 2 lessons a week until lesson 20 and then do 1 per week the rest of the year. I think I will spread it out the way Analytical Grammar does and spread it out over 2 or 3 years with a small review every few weeks that we do not use it.
Kelley
Kelley ~
Thanks so much for letting me know about AO!
I appreciate you ladies and wish I could see your shining faces! 🙂
In Christ,
Heather
Just thought I would get this post back on the main page incase anyone who has had experience with Analytical Grammar might see it. My dh seems to be leaning us toward Anyalytical Grammar. Therefore, I would love to know how this is CM friendly and how it has worked with you and your children. However, I do thank you for letting me know your thoughts on OMT also.
Abundant blessings to you and yours! 🙂
Heather
Both “courses” have CM-friendly aspects, but neither one (IMHO) is completely perfect. The parts of Analytical Grammar that I enjoyed and thought coincided with CM philosophy were
- Treating grammar as a finite body of information that can be covered in a few years, rather than presented and reviewed year after year after year from grade 1 like most grammar courses do.
- Good length of lesson for older children. The first day/lesson of each unit takes a little longer because you are going over the new material and looking through the notes, but the following days didn’t take long (for my kids, at least).
- The Review and Reinforcement book, that the children do once a week or once every other week the rest of the year after completing the main lessons for the year, have excerpts from classic literature for them to parse and narrate.
- A couple of other personal-opinion advantages in my mind were that it emphasized diagramming, which I wanted, and that the children could pretty much do it on their own. Since it’s designed for older children, they were able to understand the notes and complete the rest of the days’ assignments independently. I sometimes sat with them on the first day to go over the notes together, but the rest of the week was completed on their own.
- I also loved the idea that when the kids had finished the main lesson book and were confident with the concepts, they could tear out the practice sheets, leaving the notes, and have a succinct grammar reference book that they could use the rest of their lives.
Now, it’s not completely CM-friendly because the sentences used in the main lessons are not — how should I put this? — literature quality. They are somewhat forced in order to emphasize the concept being practiced. But I felt like the course itself was thorough and could be used in a CM home.
As I am writing out my schedule for our subjects through the years, I was wondering what to use in the middle to upper years. I am staring Primary Language Lessons this fall for my 8 yo sons’s 2nd year. Then if I like that I’ll progress to the Intermediate Language Lessons. Of course, I was wondering that if I use the intermediate is it redundant to use Simply Grammar after wards? After resolving that quandry, I think I will go into Harvey’s Grammar (around 6th?), as I have been well pleased with the McGuffey’s. Two options: go into Simply Grammar from Primary L.L. then into Harvey’s or Skip Simply Grammar after Intermediate L.L.into Harvey’s (or whatever I decide when the time comes because I haven’t researched in depth upper level grammar). Any suggestions for upper Elementary Grammar and Middle age Grammar? I caught Sonya’s comment about Grammar being a finite subject-that makes sense. So when does it end?
Thanks (this made sense in my head, don’t know if i does on screen!)
Rachel
Rachel ~
Have you checked out Analytical Grammar? Sonya has experience with it and I have only read about it from the site http://www.analyticalgrammar.com but it begins in 6th or 7th and continues until mid way through 9th grade. After this all your children should need to do is review in HS. Also, you only work on it for the first 8-10 weeks of the school year and then review once every other week for the rest of the year. Hope this makes sense. The site can explain it better. 🙂
HTH
I’ve been comparing the schedule for Analytical Grammar from their website to the schedule on Sonya’s curriculum guide for English/Grammar. I’m wondering why Sonya decided to schedule it differently than AG recommends. I know she has a good reason and I find myself usually agreeing with her, so I’m interested to know.
AG recommends JAG for 5th grade; Sonya recommends JAG for 5th (part 1) and 6th (part 2) grades. I didn’t understant it being divided into 2 parts.
For AG, they recommend using it in grades 6, 7 and 8. Sonya recommends AG for grades 8, 9, and 10.
Also, for high school grades, does Sonya recommend AG’s high school Reinforcements or Teaching the Essay or Teaching the Research?
Thank you for any info. My son is going into 5th grade next year. The only English grammar he has had is First Language Lessons Level 1 and 2.
Donna Jo
I also would love to know Soyna’s thoughts. Cause I actually had to call AG and talk with ?? forgot her name. but she said one reasom my son wasn’t keeping with it was cause he was only doing it one day a week (that’s how I thought soyna had thought to do it so maybe I ‘m wrong there to begin with).
Anyway after talking with AG we decided to finish our LL from Queens and then we are doing to do AG M-Th everyday. I’m hopeing this will help. Any other suggestions for those who have used ti would be great. Also, we are doing it as a family (the older boys) to try and hellp them all at once.
Misty
Hi, ladies. I’d be happy to give my thoughts on the matter along with my blessing to do whatever works best for your family.
Misty, it works best to spend one week on a unit. We usually go over the notes and do the first exercise page on Monday, then the subsequent exercise pages for that unit on Tuesday through Friday.
As for the suggested grades, those are the grades that I discovered AG and used it with my children (8, 9, 10) so I could recommend those grades based on firsthand experience. Now that I’ve gotten feedback from many other families who are using AG, I would be comfortable recommending it for probably 7, 8, and 9. Obviously, Robin and Erin at AG have the most feedback and experience with a variety of families, so I would trust their recommendations as well. In other words, you have options.
The main reason I divided the JAG into two years was because I didn’t want to cover JAG in grade 5 and then wait two years to start AG. So I did a little grammar in 5th and a little in 6th, dividing up JAG.
We have used the original Review and Reinforcement book that contains excerpts from classic literature books. In looking at their site now, I don’t see that particular book listed. The High School Reinforcement books are newer, so I haven’t used any of those.
I did get their Teaching the Essay course to look over. Here are my comments on that course.
I think that answers all the questions. Let me know if I overlooked one.
I have a question as well.
My 11yo son is finishing up 5th grade as we speak and was using a textbook/workbook combo that I could barely get him to do. It wasn’t awful, just not CM friendly and something we chose from the charter school. Most definitely something that would be used in a traditional school setting. So, we have recently ditched it. So, currently he is using Daily Grams, SW book 2 and as much reading independently as time will allow, as well as our read aloud times. My question I guess is WHAT should we be using for grammar for his age and grade level? And, are we wasting our time with the Daily Grams (he likes the Daily Grams, but he’s pretty compliant so he would change if I suggested it).
It sounds like you’re working on a good Language Arts package for him:
Spelling Wisdom – spelling, plus reinforcement of correct punctuation, capitalization, and sentence structure
Reading – Good books
Speaking/Writing – Is he doing any narrating? That component will evaluate reading comprehension. And once he is established in oral narrations, you can start making the transition to written narrations, which is composition.
English Grammar – You could easily do JAG with him. It takes about 11 weeks to complete. Or you can wait a year or two and just do the full-blown AG course, which you can spread out over three years.
I must admit that I’m a bit hesitant to use Daily Grams, because they are showing the child the incorrect way to do things. All the sentences listed on the page are incorrect, so it seems to go against the CM principle of trying to make sure our children see spellings and punctuation and capitalization correctly as much as possible. Once he starts doing written narrations, you can incorporate the same skills to encourage him to correct his own work. But in order to spot the incorrect parts amid his writing, he needs a good foundation in seeing what is correct – which he is getting from his reading and Spelling Wisdom. I know other moms who use Daily Grams; that’s just my $0.02 worth.
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