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Please help me explore some grammar options…
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I have a dd who will be in 6th grade next year. Over the years she’s used Rod and Staff 2, then PLL and ILL, then Grammarland. We started JAG and she hated it. I wasn’t much of a fan either, so I decided to go back to Rod and Staff at level 5. Quickly, it jumped into diagramming, specifically simple subject/simple predicate and it was way over her head.
She’s an avid reader, has great usage, and understands the basic elements of grammar…nouns, verbs, adjectives adverbs, punctuation, capitalization…but if we push it further into prepositions, subject, predicate, etc. she is lost. I need a program which will not talk down to her but will also not be over her head. We are using Writing Tales level 1 successfully right now which includes tiny bits of grammar, but I would not consider it enough to be a full grammar program. Does anyone have any suggestions for me to look into?
A couple I’ve looked into are Growing with Grammar and Easy Grammar…any opinions on either of these?
Thanks!
We’re trying to use R&S 5 now. I must say though that I like the EGP approach with prepositions first. Most likely we will use EGP next year and just dabble with R&S till then. I dislike the layout of EGP, but will suck it up and use it anyway.
We are using Writing Tales now for ds9 & plan to go to Institute for Excellence in Writing next. I have already watched the teacher dvd set Teaching Writing Structure and Style and will use a theme based unit to start off. I think it goes well with cm and should transition nicely from Writing Tales.
We’ve used many of the same programs…actually all four of the ones you listed!
I just purchased Our Mother Tongue. I haven’t had a chance to look closely, and I’m still trying to figure out what grade to schedule it for, but it looks like a nice program. Rainbow Resource lists it for grades 4 through adult. I’m hoping to go through it with her, since I struggled to get through Grammar Land. We didn’t use any grammar program until this year, and jumped into Analytical Grammar with my 6th grader about halfway through the year. It’s not been easy, but she’s done okay with it. I love that it approaches grammar as a finite body of knowledge to master in 3 years, instead of dragging it out for 10 years or more. The first ‘year’ of AG is 10 lessons (we spread each over about 2 weeks).
Thank you for your responses! I’ve never checked into Our Mother Tongue, but I definitely will look into it.
@Wings2fly: Does IEW teach grammatical rules? Writing Tales, which we are using right now, teaches a tad bit of grammar, but nothing in depth. She is enjoying Writing Tales and if IEW would be a natural transition, and if it takes care of teaching grammar, maybe I should just stick with what we’re doing and go down the IEW path later. What do you think?
Oh and @HollyS…we got through Grammarland, along with the worksheets, but it was definitely a struggle for her and was very hard for me to follow as well!
What about Simply Grammar for two years and then ease into Our Mother Tongue? If you can participate in the oral narration required by the material, it’s supposed to be thorough (looking at the contents, I’d say so) and a good foundation. There’s no diagramming in Sg, but you become knowledgeable to prepare you for diagramming in OMT in 8th.
That had been my plan origianally until recent events require me to have mine do something more self-directed and independent AND combine grammar with composition; which SG doesn’t, but R&S does.
Or you could drop back into R&S 4. It really depends upon what your circumstances are, what you want (a grammar and comp. book or just grammar), long-term plans and dd’s learning style. From what I’ve read on R&S, if you’ve had on slight grammar instruction, you may want to start with 4 to make the transition easier or just plow through 5 and know that it probably will get better as she may get the hang of it.
So it sounds like she can tell you what the general pieces of grammar are but doesn’t have a grasp on how the parts of a sentence fits together, thus the basic diagramming is way over her head?
@ Rachel, you asked about what the circumstances were which is insightful. I do need her to be able to do her grammar more on her own at this point. I have two youngers who need me to sit with them for every subject so I am transitioning her to mostly independent work. So, while siitng with her for her grammar lessons wouldn’t be out of the question, it’s not where I would like for us to be at this point. She enjoys knowing what her assignments are and doing them on her own also. I think she just operates better that way. I could possibly drop back to R & S 4 and see how that goes, but honestly, since she enjoys Writing Tales, I’d like a program which focuses mostly on grammar alone without incorporating writing, etc. into it. Writing Tales is doing a good job of that.
HiddenJewel: Yes, I think that is it precisely! As I stated, she is doing well with Writing Tales. She can put sentences and even paragraphs together without much correction, but she doesn’t understand “why” things are wrong when they are wrong, if that makes any sense.
“but she doesn’t understand “why” things are wrong when they are wrong, if that makes any sense.”
That makes perfect sense. And it also is a great example why understanding diagramming is so powerful for composition. It really helps you be able to see where your sentence went wrong.
If you like R&S, definitely take a look at Growing with Grammar.
Tailormade knows more about IEW as she teaches a co-op. You could pm her and check out their website. They do not do sentence diagramming. They learn grammar as they use it in their writing. You do not have to do theme based units if you know the method but I am starting with them until I get more experience. Then I plan for the writing assignments to work right into our school day through othr subjects by way of written narrations but using their method. There is another option for tbe student that uses dvds to teach the student called Student Writing Intensive. There are three levels but you do only one level based on age.
One example is that when they re-write a story (similar to what Writing Tales does) there will be a list of banned verbs which might include “eat” for example. They cannot use the word eat but they are encouraged to use a thesaurus (electronic thesaurus is highly encouraged for ese of use). This way they are learning what verbs are through the context of their writing. Now they are using stong verbs instead of eat, like devour or consume. That is just one example I remember from the dvd set for teachers,TWSS. The company has a money back guarantee. I bought mine used and they have a high re-sell value. That said you could buy a used set to view this summer and if it is not for you, sell it for what you paid for it used. The teacher is great and has a good sense of humor. Aside from learning how to teach their method, he taught me that it is always okay to help the child; you cannot help them too much. That was very freeing for me to learn and helped me when applied to other subjects like math. hth.
I just purchased Our Mother Tongue. I haven’t had a chance to look closely, and I’m still trying to figure out what grade to schedule it for, but it looks like a nice program. Rainbow Resource lists it for grades 4 through adult. I’m hoping to go through it with her, since I struggled to get through Grammar Land. 
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