I am brand new to this site, like today!! I am struggling with all of the abbreviations for classes. How do I know what books I should use for my 7 th and 8th grader? I see abbreviations for ILL , AG, and LLATL how do I find them?
ILL= Intermediate Language Lessons for grades 4-6, respectively, by Emma Serl. It is the second in the series. Her first one is PLL=Primary Language Lessons for grades 2-4. It is a complete and gentle, very CM, Langauage Arts (LA) program. Your children are too young for them.
AG=Analytical Grammar. It’s a grammar program for the middle grades. There’s also a Junior AG for slightly younger. You may also come across OMT=Our Mother Tongue. A Grammar program, less workbooky than AG, I think; for the upper middle grades and first of upper level. There are several posts on each.
LLATL= Learning Language Arts through Literature. Another LA program that uses color-coded books and I think is far more structured than PLL and ILL. I use PLL and ILL; I’ve never used this one so I can’t give you details, but if you do a search through different posts, you can get a lot of info. about them. I don’t know if you can start at your children’s ages.
Let us know if you have any more questions. I assume you’re looking for a LA program or grammar?
I think Primary and Intermediate Language Lessons would actually be too young, or just right for your kids if they’re 7th & 8th grades (ILL). 7 & 8 year olds could start with PLL easily as an oral language lesson time or even on their own if their reading skills will allow it. I’ve actually used it for junior high aged kids whose reading skills needed them to wait a bit. They are similar to Karen Andreola’s book, Simply Grammar (SG).
Our Mother Tongue is for advanced junior high aged kids, if not high school aged kids heading for college. It has some awesome side bar info. on the history of the English language.
Learning Language Arts Through Literature has daily CM type lessons that are short and sweet based on ages using excellent literature. It gives step by step ideas. You can follow it to the letter or change things up a bit.
At times we’ve actually used the self-teaching approach with Easy Grammar. Some of my kids like the independent less wordy workbooks. If you see EG or EG+, that’s Easy Grammar and Easy Grammar Plus. DG is similar for Daily Grams and is by the same publisher.
My favorites are still PLL and ILL. I use the reprinted older version. I haven’t seen the updated version and haven’t used Queen Homeschool’s materials or the SCM LA resource. I’d like to hear a comparison of those if someone can share. I’d like to have a follow up for PLL and ILL for the older levels. But, frankly after the two of them, the kids have a fairly good understanding of the written and spoken language.
after ILL, or at least the last year of it, I’m going to start mine in Meaningful Composition 4A (MC) for writing skills. Then after ILL, a year of Daily Warm-ups using the spelling and grammar one just to review and rest (MC has some grammar at the beginning of their first level) and then at age 14 or 15, begin Our Mother Tongue. They’ll both have been doing Latin, too, so I think that will be enough.
Stephanie,
what you use at this point depends on what your children have had up till this point, where they’re at academically and your goals for their education.