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Sonya – why Analytical Grammar? or Jr. AG?
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Sonya, I’m just curious why you recommend this over Language Lessons or something else?
Do you think the Language Lessons is twaddl-y? Or maybe just overkill if you are already doing picture study, narration, etc?
Do you think the Jr. AG is necessary? Or would you feel comfortable skipping Jr. AG and then using AG according to the SCM schedule?
When I talked to Robin at our bookfair last weekend, I told her that I had heard about AG from here and that the schedule recommendation was different. I’m just curious why you wouldn’t follow theirs?
Just trying to think through this and I’m REALLY curious about your answers. I’m not trying to be difficult, so I hope my prodding doesn’t seem that way.
thanks a bunch!
in Him,
Christine
Great questions, Christine. I like those language arts courses that incorporate variety, like English for the Thoughtful Child and Language Lessons and such. They’re wonderful. I just prefer a concise presentation of the eight parts of speech for our actual grammar studies (which are only a portion of language arts studies). That’s why I recommend using JAG or AG for that purpose.
It seems like a well-rounded language arts course will include
- listening (which they get from our reading aloud),
- reading (which they get with the living books),
- spelling (which they get through dictation),
- vocabulary (which they get from both of the above in context),
- speaking (which they get from oral narration and recitation),
- punctuation and capitalization (which they get from dictation, reading, and copywork),
- handwriting (which they get from copywork and other writing assignments),
- composition (which they get from narration, both oral and written),
- proper use of English (which they get from good books and those delightful language books mentioned above),
- grammar (meaning parts of speech and the jobs they do, which I like to get in concise form from JAG and AG).
As for the schedule, please feel free to approach JAG and AG on any schedule that works best for your family. I placed them in the curriculum guide in the way that our family used them, but that’s only a suggestion of what worked for us. Do what works for you.
Does that (rather long-winded) explanation help or just muddy the waters? 🙂
Sonya, I like this explaination, it’s reestablished my plan to use Jr AG with my 5th grader next year.
Thanks!
Okay, one more question on this.
I think I’m going to definitely use AG for my 8th grader.
I’m still deciding between Jr. AG and LL for my 5th grade girl. I’m wondering if I use LL for the next couple of years, will there be a bunch of overlap if we switched to AG in the upper years?
Also, about how long do you think it takes to do a lesson in each of these each day? thanks!
I wouldn’t think there would be a lot of overlap. The AG course is concise enough that, even if a concept were already known by the student, it wouldn’t feel like unnecessary review.
With both the JAG and AG, the parent goes through the lesson notes and one practice lesson with the child on Monday (or whenever you start that unit), then the child does the rest of the reinforcement/practice lessons in the unit throughout the week, one each day. So usually the Monday lesson is the longest. How long, of course, depends on the child, but I think it usually took us about 15-20 minutes for JAG and maybe 20-30 minutes for AG. The rest of the week took maybe half that time.
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