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Grammer – From families who have been through it OR almost
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So I am seeing a lot of questions about grammer/english. So I am wondering for those of you who:
1. Have been through or almost through grammer AND 2. Ether you or your child are not naturally grammer inclined.
If I as a mom who doens’t understand grammer and it’s hard to teach, who needs a system that can teach the child slowly and simply, and must have an answer key, can I use just what is outlined on the guide and still end up with a child who at least understands the basics?
I hear and look at all the options for grammer, LL, EFTC, and many more and wonder all the time which is better. Are they really better or just “different”. They are all CM friendly then I think they would all be in the end the same. Previous post about LL or EFTC – they are really the same in the end?
I want my children to not dread grammer, don’t want them to worry or stress about it. BUT I want them to understand it, which is what I never was able to do (and still can’t). I want them in the end to know the basics what a noun is, where it belongs and how to use it (same for the other ones, pronoun, adjective, etc.) I want them to write a nice paragraph, narration or other. I want them to be able to get into college (if they want) with enough taught at home to do well and not struggle through the grammer there.
I don’t need know it alls in this area but compitent children who understand. So is doing the simplier things like LL through high school with Analytica Grammer going to cover it all (using the suggestions on the guide as an example)?
I know we need to do what is best for our own family, I get that and know it. I’m just not always sure what makes one program better than the next. So if you have been here and maybe done the simpier things did it work out ok? I know each child will do differently using the same program, so maybe I just need to stick with it and let God do the rest. If he feels like this isn’t enough for them, then maybe he’ll place something new within my reach. It’s so hard to trust sometimes when it comes to our kids, isn’t it?
Thanks for listening, to my thoughts. I appreciate everything on this board, the advice, the SCM team, and the family we have made. Maybe one day we could have a SCM gathering.. wouldn’t that be nice~!
Misty
We are using Analytical Grammar. The program runs for 3 years and you only spend 13 weeks working on it. If you don’t have three years you can do it in less time. The teacher and student books are exactly the same except the teacher book has the answers. Even if you don’t understand grammar you and the student can work through it together. I would imagine you can call the women that created the program and ask questions if necessary.
IMHO the reason so many families have so many problems with grammar is that they spend too much time teaching it. Grammar is a finite body of information. Learn it once and be done with it. You do not need to review it year after year after year. On thing I really like about Analytical Grammar is that she teaches punctuation during the last season of grammar, at the very end. Because as she says, “It doesn’t make sense to tell a child to put commas around a prepositional phrase if she doesn’t understand what that is.” My dd is just starting 7th grade and she is having her first grammar lessons. She will have grammar in 7-9th grades then begin composition in 10th grade.
So glad to have this thread! Pre-CM, I used Easy Grammar. It was nice and the boys could do it pretty much on their own (kinda nice to have one of those!). We switched this year to Sandi’s Language Lessons for the Elementary Child… Although I LOVE the concept, I am concerned that it is too light for my boys (12 and 10). I am thinking of switching to Analytical Grammar/Jr. Analytical Grammar for them…. We are only on about lesson 95. I don’t know if I should just ditch it now and start something more advanced or plug on through. I think my 12 year old is ready, but not so sure about my 10 year old. Decisions, decisions!
Good question, I have wondered the same. We started with Easy Grammar and now that we are switching to CM I wonder where to go. I looked at Jr. Analytical and while I like it, they teach grammar totally backwards from EG. How much confusion will I cause if I ask him to start breaking up sentences backwards?
I”m going to jump in here and see if anyone here has used Shurley and what their thoughts on it are?
It’s funny…last night I met with a couple of other homeschool moms just to encourage and share curriculum ideas and grammar was a topic that came up. We all had our current curriculum there with us to see. I use Queen Homeschooling for my 12 and 9 year old boys. My girlfriends use different…one uses daily grams and easy grammar (along with other writing programs) and the other uses spectrum for grammar, spelling, phonics, etc. (5 different books for language arts). After comparing the programs we found that basically Queen homeschooling covers most of the same things that there programs do but without bombarding the kids with tons of written work. My boys are doing very brief daily lessons vs. their children doing 4+ pages in each book daily.
Now I have noticed that Queen Homeschooling doesn’t cover sentence diagramming, etc., so I am considering using Analytical grammar for my oldest at some point but I do like that Queen Language Lessons covers grammar basics along with creative writing (especially in the highschool years) as well as essay writing which is very important in the university years.
I’m curious (just my thoughts so please be gentle) about how important sentence diagramming, etc. really is for college/university? That wasn’t even touched on when I went to school (post-secondary) but essay writing definitely was.
Shelli
To be honest this is GREAT!! Exactly what I wanted.
I also am using LL with all 4 of my boys and they LOVE IT. It’s easy, and they can do 2 or 3 lessons if time allows in a day. which makes them feel really good. tandc93 we use Jr. A/G with my 11 yr old along side LL. As per a thread where Soyna suggested it for me as I thought he might need more. This is working out very well. He does Jr AG on Mondays and LL Tues – Thurs. (we don’t school much on Friday). My 11 yr old is doing ok with Jr AG overall. But we did it only Mondays so as to split the book as also suggested into 2 years.
See I’m not alone then in thinking.. it seems so easy I must be doing something wrong or not giving them enough. Maybe it’s because in school I remember struggling so much in this area??
Cheryl – I am glad to hear from someone who is using AG and liking it and the way it’s layed out. Which is what I liked about it.
shelli- I would love to hear also how important the diagramming is?
Thanks for all this I am hoping to see more here throughout the day’s ahead. It has been very helpful. Misty
Thanks, lamasahm! I may look into it. I try to keep both boys in the same books if possible, just require more out of the older one…I also like that JR. AG is cheaper than the reg! I’m going to look into it.
About the diagramming…I have wondered that too. I see so many people stress diagramming and I don’t know the last time I’ve used it in real life. I’m guessing most people feel that if you diagram you can use more varied sentences and use the parts of speech more accurately? We did use R & S for about 2 months and the diagramming was a bit much and monotonous….
Curious to hear other’s reasoning for diagramming. THANKS!
Well, I always thought that diagramming was for the purpose of learning the parts of speech and how a sentence is put together. It did seem to help me in school. However you should take this with a grain of salt, as I was good at English in school. And figured out how to diagram when I was 8. It just seemed to “click”. Math however…
frustrated me to no end! I don’t think it is absolutly necessary, as long as you find another way to learn these things. Everyone learns differently and what may work for one will confuse someone else. So I wouldn’t teach it that way if I couldn’t understand it.I just wanted to give my 2 cents on Queen’s Langugage Lessons. We have tried lots of English programs of all types and I had always avoided Queen’s thinking it was too short and too easy. We burned out on what we were using and I ordered the Elementary Lessons for all my kids (ages 8,10 and 11). It is going so well!!! No frustration and I looked through it and compared and like sheli I found it is all covered but so much more painlessly. We are going to stick with it for awhile and see how the grammar comes along with only that.
I also find that the Queen’s Langugage Lessons are more “full” if you use some of her books studies with it. In there they do small easy (to start with) researching and report writing. Adds much in the way of writing. You can also add her Learning How to Learn book for dictionary, encyclopedia, atlas, phone book and concordance using.
No affiliation…just a happy customer.
We are using Fix-it Grammar with my 5th grader (Institute for Excellence in Writing) He has been public schooled up to this point and knows the basic parts of speech. The way Fix-it works is that it takes a story and has 4 passages (at the beginning it is one sentence per passage) for each week that the student corrects. There is also a vocabulary word for each passage. The student is to rewrite the selection after finding mistakes and then the parent/teacher checks over for additional mistakes. There is a checklist for each week and it introduces new parts of speech and basics of grammar as you go through the program. The passages are classic pieces of literature and the 1 books is good for 5 years worth of grammar in this way. The first selection is Adventures of Tom Sawyer. You get a code to download the student pages and the book that you buy has all the corrections and lessons in it. So far we love it! We have listened to Tom Sawyer this summer so my son is familiar with the story and so far he loves it! he does the work independently and I check it after he rewrites.
My comment is about diagramming sentences – someone above wondered if it was necessary for college. I really don’t think diagramming sentences is in most public school curricula anymore. And I took a few writing classes in college, and a few lit classes, and we were never given any kind of grammar instruction whatsoever, certainly never asked to diagram a sentence. I have never heard of a college level course in grammar. HOWEVER, I have had a freshman level course where the professor marked our written work down a letter grade for each grammatical error. That made you sit up and take notice, believe me!
Just another plug for Queen’s Lang Lessons – love them! And I think a lot of grammar comes naturally through reading literature and getting a feel for how sentences “ought” to sound and look. I realize that there are some grammar resistant kids out there, though. And I wonder how the casual nature of today’s written communication affects our grammar skills – this forum for instance, texting, facebook. I certainly relax my own rules to sound more conversational, or be brief.
We also use Critical Thinking Company’s workbooks called “Editor in Chief” for reinforcement of ideas. They are basically a series of documents that contain grammatical errors, that the child proofreads and marks with editing marks (love that they are learning these BTW) and then there are a few questions about specific passages, like asking them to write it correctly. Very short lessons or tweakable to short lesson. And in the table of contents you can look up specific topics to find sheets for them, like if you want to work on capitalization, for instance, or use of quotation marks.
frustrated me to no end! I don’t think it is absolutly necessary, as long as you find another way to learn these things. Everyone learns differently and what may work for one will confuse someone else. So I wouldn’t teach it that way if I couldn’t understand it.
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