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changing grammar program mid-year for 4th grader?
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My 4th grader has been working through Get Smart Grammar. She’s just finished lesson 14 (out of 37) and understands it ok so far, but each successive lesson is taking her longer and longer to do because she really has to think about each component of each sentence. I was planning on her doing roughly 2/3 of it this year and finishing the rest next year, or even over the summer, but now I’m rethinking that plan. Maybe it would be better to put it on hold until 6th grade when hopefully it would click a little faster, and do something else for grammar for the rest of this year and next year? I have Easy Grammar 4 which looks like it would be a good, easy review of what she’s already learned in GSG…I could have her work through that until it was done and maybe diagram one sentence a week besides/after that to help her retain everything she learned in GSG. Does that sound like a reasonable plan? I do not want to stop for this year and start at this point again next year as I’d like to do a light school year next year for various reasons and I don’t really see this being much easier for her next year than this year.
If you have something you can use to just review what she’s learned thus far, and not go any further, then I think that’s a good plan. You could even back up just a little to increase her confidence, as she’s probably getting frustrated, but her brain just isn’t ready yet.
Also, keep the weekly diagram simple. Maybe just subject/predicate/direct object or predicate noun and not worry with adjectives, or adverbs and prepositions, or their phrases. The minimum. You could try again next year; a lot can happen to the brain in one year.
I don’t know anything about the programs you mentioned. Growing with Grammar has been the only thing remotely successful for my dd, who at age 14, is just entering level 5. She’s excellent with language, but terrible with breakung it down into parts.
Learning Latin or Spanish also would help.
Many CM moms save formal grammar for middle school so that’s always an option as well.
I teach very basic grammar in elementary school but that’s it until 6th or 7th grade.
My oldest is 20 and my youngest, 7, and we’ve done lots and lots of grammar programs out there! Personally, I love grammar and diagramming but my kids struggled with it, but I was always left disappointed in a program for one reason or another. Then on a discussion here, I heard about Get Smart Grammar from http://www.english-grammar-revolution.com. It was the best homeschool money we’ve ever spent! You have plenty of time to teach grammar, which is a fixed set of rules to apply. Most programs are review, review, review of the same facts, year after year. My kids had been doing other programs, but nothing was sticking. Get Smart Grammar is a set of very engaging videos and printouts (I got the digital version). NOW…they’ve got it, for the most part, AND they’ve told me that they even love diagramming and see how it helped them understand it! Just my 2cents! ☺
I think I’d try Easy Grammar (since you already have it) and keep up with the diagramming. My DC prefer to diagram on the dry erase board than writing on paper, so maybe she’d like that.
I noticed my 3rd grader’s book (ELTL) has diagramming coming up, but I’m not sure I want to cover it this year. We may be skipping over that part of the lessons. I don’t see anything wrong with holding it off until later.
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