6th grade secular grammar

[sarahf.]

Help! I am totally undecided what to use for grammar this year. We have done FLL1-4 and Hake 5, my son found Hake to be too slow and repetitive. I was considering AG or MCT but am not sure which to go with, anyone have any input or suggestions. Thanks.

[jenslp]

If you want just grammar AG is solid.  If you want a more integrated language arts that includes grammar then MCT would be a great choice.  I don't think MCT uses sentence diagramming in their grammar if that matters to you...it's a personal preference thing as some people care that their kiddos diagram and others don't care.  Do you already have the rest of your language arts covered with only grammar left to decide on?  If so then Analytical Grammar would be my vote...it's a great grammar program and can be done quickly or stretched out with review in between sessions. 

[blondemonkey]

I was considering AG for my 6th grader...mostly for the mechanics. We have used MCT the last three years with great success. I thought he might like to do diagramming withAG for a change. MCT really made him understand the sentence structure so as we do WWS, I can easily talk about phrases, clauses, subjects, subject complements, and direct objects without a blank look. Lol. I can tell him to try swapping his DO with his Sub without any confusion on his part...and for my dysgraphia/dyslexic, mathy kid that is epic! He absolutely appreciates the single sentence analysis each day rather than A full-page of grammar. That said he does need practice with applying punctuation.

[sarahf.]

We will be doing WWS 1 and CE 1 so I really just need a stand alone grammar.

[Momling]

We liked EPS Rules of the game

[mdefields]

We used Jr. AG in 4th grade and loved it. I was actually surprised that my dd didn't balk at doing workbook stuff, but it was really great and she learned so much from it. We are going to start AG in 7th grade since we are going to be so busy with Word Roots, WWS1, and CW1. I'm thinking since she got such a great start with Jr. AG, she'll be fine for a while longer.

 

July 29 - Okay, I changed my mind. DD has been saying she wants to go to public school in 8th grade, so I need to get AG done in the next two years! Eek.

[shukriyya]

I've used JAG with my fifth grader and, like the pp, my ds didn't balk at the workbook material, in fact he enjoyed it. That said we're going to take a break from AG and do MCT this year. This is ds's request when I asked him which he'd prefer. We did a little MCT towards the end of this past year and he recalled liking it. His engagement with a particular curriculum is my cue to implement it :D

[redsquirrel]

FWIW, I was in your shoes a couple years ago. And, as much as it kills me to say this, we ended up with R&S. I know, I know. We are as secular as they come and I make it work. It is really is an excellent and easy to implement grammar program.

 

We do most of it orally. I do the warm up exercises, read some of the lesson to DS, and skip what i can because sometimes it is very biblical. Then we move onto the exercises. There are more than anyone could ever do. There are 'class exercises" and 'student exercises"  And each of those section usually has at least three different sets of exercises that covers the information in  different way. So, if all the questions in class exercise 'A" use sentence from the bible, then I move to class exercise 'B' because those are all about geography or farming or whatever. It took me about a week to get the hang of it and then it was smooth sailing. In fact, my older boy really liked the program. The lessons often end in a second review of past lessons and we did those some of the time. And there are usually sentence for diagramming. I usually assigned about 2 of those. There is also a workbook for students and if the lesson had a worksheet I might only do some of the class exercises and then have him do the worksheet...but skip the really religious questions.

 

It does have writing exercises and we always skipped those lessons and used WWS. There are lessons on things like 'taking notes on a sermon' and those we also skipped. It still gave us a full year of grammar. We did it 3-4 times a week.

 

For entertainment, I would sometimes change the references in the biblical questions to names from Doctor Who or Lord of the Rings or Percy Jackson. My son LOVED that.

 

If you look at R&S it can be easy to get freaked out by the religious stuff. But, if you approach it with 'how can I make this work' you  might be surprised.

 

I spend 5th grade and half of 6th trying different grammar programs to follow up FLL 1-4. R&S was the only thing that felt like a good fit, even with all the parts that don't fit.

 

And, grammar programs are repetitive. I think especially 5th and 6th grade because so many kids don't start grammar until that point. There is a huge amount of catch up that happens. And there is only so much grammar to learn, lol. In the middle school years it is about practice and application. You might just want to stick with Hake. I didn't try Hake and sort of regret it. It prob would have worked.

 

Good luck. I hope you finds what works for you and your kid! :001_smile:

[Guest]

Have you looked at Easy Grammar?

 

Grammar is just boring.

[momto2Cs]

I'll be using The Giggly Guide to Grammar with my 6th grader this year (and probably the 8th grader as well). We'll follow it up with Hot Fudge Monday from Prufrock Press.