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I have had it with teaching a dyslexic grammar.


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I'm not even sure it is worth our time and effort. We've done FLL 1-2, MCT Grammar Island, MCT Town, parts of Hake 6, and the first section of TC. Oh, and The Sentence Family. It doesn't matter how many times we go over parts of speech or in what forms (story, color-coded or otherwise), ds never remembers adjectives, adverbs, prepositions or pronouns. He has got basic subject/predicate & nouns/verbs down cold but it is like that info takes the entire language portion of his brain and nothing else will fit up there. I feel like we are banging our heads against a wall (similarly with multiplication facts).

 

Do I just give up? Analyze one sentence a day? Something else? Grammar takes so much time and effort and I can't see any progress at all. He knows as much grammar now as he did at age 7 despite tons of programs & work. Is there a chart for grammar? Can I just give him that or let him use Ginger? At what point does this approach the point of diminishing returns?

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:grouphug:

 

We use Daily Grams, and Easy Grammar.  I highly recommend the Daily Grams.  The pages are uncluttered and easy to get through.  My son is 12, and we just go over each concept as needed.  We just keep going over stuff, again, and again, and again.  It can be frustrating.  He never seems to remember even the most basic rules.  But last year, after testing, he told me that the Daily Grams really helped, and his scores did improve.  

 

Hang in there, and just keep at it.  He will pick up a little bit here and there.  You do the best you can.

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:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug:

 

So is it that he cannot properly diagram a sentence?  Label the parts of speech?  You say he uses grammar correctly in his speech, but I was not entirely clear about his writing.  Are his challenges with writing due to spelling and dysgraphia type issues or is poor use of grammar also a problem? Or some other combination of writing challenges?

 

Junk the rest of this if it doesn't help, but I thought I would share something.  FWIW, I cannot diagram a sentence.  I find a lot of grammar terms confusing, at times even incomprehensible.  But it is the LABEL that is the issue.  I don't know all the labels.  They never stuck.  It has not affected my ability to write, though.  I always got great grades in school for my writing.  I did well in college in my writing.  People actually hired me to help them with writing projects when I was in the work force.  Now if they had hired me to diagram sentences and label parts of speech, well....I would not have had a lot of job prospects.  But I wrote all the time and earned extra money doing it.

 

Of course, I did not have issues with spelling or the physical act of handwriting, but I used a computer most of the time so those issues really wouldn't have impeded me that much had they actually been a problem.  I learned grammar simply by being exposed to a lot of literature.  I read voraciously.  While my children, because of dyslexia, have not been exposed to the mountains of books I had already read by their ages, I am trying to expose them as much as possible to literature through read alouds, discussions, and audio books.  DD and DS struggle with labels for anything (math, grammar, etc).  DD sometimes even forgets the names of the letters of the alphabet.  The labels for the rules in Barton are tough, too.  But she knows her letters and she is internalizing all those Barton rules well with lots of exposures.  She just struggles with the retrieval of the label.  

 

I am trying to expose them to as much literature as I can in the hopes that they will pick up grammar from hearing it used properly, as well as lessons we do through Barton and other sources.  So far they are doing pretty well with output.  Just not the labels as much.  No guarantees at all that this is a good way to go, I know.  Pulling up all those terms, having to properly label things, may never be that easy for them.  My goal in the long run is for them to at least be able to use grammar correctly, even if they can never remember what word to call something or how to diagram a sentence.  

 

Not sure any of that helped you at all, but I thought I would share, just in case.

 

Hugs. I totally get your frustration.  So sorry, FP.

 

Best wishes.

 

 

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I can't diagram a sentence either. I can't even define predicate.

 

And yet not only has writing always been a strong point for me, but I had perfect scores on the English portions of the SAT, ACT, and later the GRE.

 

Grammatical analysis is truly not the be-all, end-all of language arts skills. I'm thinking your child's time and effort may be better spent elsewhere, developing skills where he is actively making progress rather than beating his head against what seems to be a brick wall for him at this time.

 

You could come back and revisit concepts like adverb and adjective again in a year or two, maybe play a lot of mad libs, but if he isn't struggling to construct grammatical sentences I would personally be inclined to let in depth analysis go.

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I can't diagram a sentence either. I can't even define predicate.

 

And yet not only has writing always been a strong point for me, but I had perfect scores on the English portions of the SAT, ACT, and later the GRE.

 

Grammatical analysis is truly not the be-all, end-all of language arts skills. I'm thinking your child's time and effort may be better spent elsewhere, developing skills where he is actively making progress rather than beating his head against what seems to be a brick wall for him at this time.

 

You could come back and revisit concepts like adverb and adjective again in a year or two, maybe play a lot of mad libs, but if he isn't struggling to construct grammatical sentences I would @personally be inclined to let in depth analysis go.

:iagree:  :iagree:  :iagree:

 

My SAT was almost perfect on the language side (don't ask about the math).  But I'm with maize...what's a predicate?  Vaguely I THINK I recall something called a predicate adjective, too, or maybe I am making that one up.

 

Edited to add I got a degree that required a lot of writing and I did well in the degree and in college in general. 

 

But I wonder if someone can say what the SAT/ACT requirements are for properly labeling grammar?  Not just reading and determining which sentences sound right or something like that, but actually having to label.  Is there such a thing?  I realize that the SAT is changing.  Just curious since I know the SAT today is very different from when I took it.

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My dyslexic son's understanding of grammar got much better around age 13.  We used Grammar Voyage with the practice book that year.  You might want to take some time off and try again in a year or two.

 

 

This would support the thoughts of some in classical education who find many analytical English grammar programs far too "analytical" for younger children. How much more so for our children with dyslexia!

 

Mrs. Cheryl Lowe writes in an archived Classical Teacher article:

  • It is difficult for students to analyze something they use instinctively because students do not need grammar to use their own language, so
  • English grammar, for most students, is useless and dull.

....English grammar is too abstract for the grammar stage. In my opinion it is about the same level of abstraction and difficulty as algebra.

 

 

If you agree, you might consider EKS's suggestion, especially because your son speaks and writes (when he writes) grammatically! This may even be a hidden result of your hard work (FLL 1-2, etc.) so far.

 

 

Fwiw, when my own twins (autism, severe learning disabilities) were your son's age, I should have devoted more time to intensive, step-by-step writing instruction than to analytical grammar. This is another reason I would echo EKS's suggested approach.

 

 

What if you deferred formal, analytical English Grammar instruction for now and exchanged this for a realistically step-by-step writing time? You could incorporate the various grammar terms, correct punctuation, and other writing rules along the way, so you would not be abandoning your approach, just adapting it for a time.

 

 

If your son has trouble writing his own words, he might appreciate copybook exercises, so he is required only to write the excellent thoughts and words of others. Susan offers a good explanation of this progression in the teacher's guide of Writing With Ease. The need for "copybook first" seems especially true for our LD children. You could create your own daily copybook program with a paragraph (or sentence) from his literature program, until he is secure in conveying his own complete ideas in writing.

 

 

Just a thought. I enjoy reading your posts, btw.

 

 

Cheryl

 

Simply Classical: A Beautiful Education for Any Child

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Funny enough, the boys play MadLibs all the time for fun (it is one of those things I strew in their activity boxes as an option) and they have NO problem with it then. I do think it is the labeling, analysis, and word retrieval that is the problem. Ds actually speaks so correctly it sounds almost archaic because he listens to so much language spoken on audiobooks and much of it is classics or children's classics.

 

Ugh. I've been ignoring the neuropsych recommendations to give up sentence diagramming for 3 years and it looks like they were right after all. Maybe we will come back to it in a few years and focus on writing instead. Anybody have great writing recommendations for a dysgraphic? I'm thinking maybe the Writing Skills handbooks or back to Verticy (which was working before I dropped it to try something else).

 

Looking back through old posts - I miss hearing the thoughts of lots of people! RamonaQ, Doodler, Shari/Paisley, & others if you have thoughts for me on teaching writing now that ds is older and hitting that 4th/5th grade range, I would love to hear them!

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This is perhaps a silly thought, but my son learns so much better when things are put to music. We use the Schoolhouse Rock Grammar songs to cement grammar definitions. The songs are catchy and seem to stick. They are all on youtube, or you can get the Schoolhouse Rock DVD inexpensively on amazon. They may perhaps be useful as a way of making language arts less stressful?

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Yes to the speaking and yes also for writing (when he writes). Writing is a whole other ball of wax that just makes me want to cry. Teaching a dyslexic to read is EASY compared to teaching a dyslexic/dysgraphic to write.

 

Then I'd suggest dropping grammar and spending the time you'd be doing that added to the writing time.

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 Anybody have great writing recommendations for a dysgraphic?

 

 

 

Can you be more specific as to what you are looking for? What have you tried and what has worked well (if anything) or badly about it?

 

As to the physical writing if that's an issue, I'd suggest typing, scribing, or a dictation program. But I assume you mean writing as composition.

 

The Writing Skills books mostly did not work at all well for my ds, I believe because they did not work to engage him at all at his level of thinking. As with reading, he has needed things that can be "high interest/low level." But some people find them very helpful.

 

My ds got a lot of help from BW as I've posted about before.

 

Currently he is enjoying the HogwartsisHere site, which requires many short little essays. So far since September, he has written about a half dozen short essays for his HIH Astronomy class (the main one I pay attention to since the content is real world based), and a few, I'm not sure how many, for each of 6 other "classes." And he seems to be needing less and less of my help the more of them he does. In addition, he has started to do "friends" communications with others, has sent notes to the professors and prefects, and used the forums boards, so it has been a good bit of writing all together. I think my ds is a bit older than yours, so I am not sure if that would fit your son's interests as well as it has just seemed to meet mine. Also mine is a Harry Potter fan. If yours does not like HP, then HIH would probably be of no interest (except possibly for the astronomy). BTW if you have your ds sign up, mine is in Griffindor (sp?), which is in the lead in "house points" which may make it feel more inspiring, and also there seem to be a nice group of kids communicating in its "Common Room," helping explain to each other how to use features, sign up for classes, etc., all of which is yet more writing practice, whether one is asking a question or replying to one. 

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We have three dyslexics in the house. The only thing that EVER worked for us was Shurley.

It approaches every sentence the same. Everything fits into the same series of questions. Every part of speech is identified the same way every time.

It does not go up into 12th grade grammar, but it worked for us.

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Can you be more specific as to what you are looking for? What have you tried and what has worked well (if anything) or badly about it?

 

As to the physical writing if that's an issue, I'd suggest typing, scribing, or a dictation program. But I assume you mean writing as composition.

 

The Writing Skills books mostly did not work at all well for my ds, I believe because they did not work to engage him at all at his level of thinking. As with reading, he has needed things that can be "high interest/low level." But some people find them very helpful.

 

My ds got a lot of help from BW as I've posted about before.

 

Currently he is enjoying the HogwartsisHere site, which requires many short little essays. So far since September, he has written about a half dozen short essays for his HIH Astronomy class (the main one I pay attention to since the content is real world based), and a few, I'm not sure how many, for each of 6 other "classes." And he seems to be needing less and less of my help the more of them he does. In addition, he has started to do "friends" communications with others, has sent notes to the professors and prefects, and used the forums boards, so it has been a good bit of writing all together. I think my ds is a bit older than yours, so I am not sure if that would fit your son's interests as well as it has just seemed to meet mine. Also mine is a Harry Potter fan. If yours does not like HP, then HIH would probably be of no interest (except possibly for the astronomy). BTW if you have your ds sign up, mine is in Griffindor (sp?), which is in the lead in "house points" which may make it feel more inspiring, and also there seem to be a nice group of kids communicating in its "Common Room," helping explain to each other how to use features, sign up for classes, etc., all of which is yet more writing practice, whether one is asking a question or replying to one. 

Not to hijack but I am fascinated by this HogwartsisHere thing.  Can kids join at any time?

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If you want to conjure up the ghost of Doodler... Look at:

 

Peggy Kaye's Games for Writing

100 Days of Writing

Listography

anything Bravewriter

lots of games involving writing and expressive language

Don't Forget to Write (elementary and secondary books)----She HUGELY loved this and HIGHLY recommended them.

 

I lost the post where I had brought in all the links, sorry.  There was probably more.  She has no room for WTM/SWB's approach to writing at all.  Everything was about context, real expression, really having something to say, really having it flow from the child.  Lots of games, meaningful writing, writing in context.  It's not so much a program as a thought process.  But I can tell you they did a LOT with games, discussion, discussion.  She would parallel write with her dd, so she would do the assignment as well and then trade and let each other critique.  

 

You could say she cared more about nurturing expressive language and thought than she did about following a form on paper.  And the result was that EVENTUALLY the two came together.  With severe dysgraphia btw.

 

And just for your trivia, she used (oy, my memory fails me!), the thick orange book for spelling, the torturous one with long lists along with Freed's recommendations for visualization from his book Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World.  You might find Freed's recommendations on writing also interesting.

 

If the forcing method isn't working for you, yes channeling Doodler might.

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Hm, I think a lot of those suggestions might be helpful for younger ds who just has a block between hand and brain but has lots to say. He loves those kinds of creative games.

 

Older ds finds them patronizing and just wants to cut to the chase already. I'm thinking we do just need to go back to the Writing Skills books and Verticy. It was working as long as every composition could be about car engines or planes. Can I just teach the kid to do technical writing and be done with it?

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Can I just teach the kid to do technical writing and be done with it?

Yes.

 

I'm surprised you even ask.  Doing one thing WELL that he's invested in will build skills that he's eventually able to carry over to other genres later, when he has more maturity and flexibility.

 

So yes, it's ok to roll with his interest in topics AND the genre.

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Saw this article earlier.. Thought some of you might enjoy the read... especially point #3 about GRAMMAR!!  I know it's a different ballgame for kids with dyslexia and grammar, but yeah... I've told plenty of parents, don't even worry about teaching parts of speech and diagramming sentences.  It has no practical application for kids with LDs and is just extra torture! :O (YEP. I said that)

 

The article: http://educationbythenumbers.org/content/3-lessons-science-teach-writing_2194/

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Saw this article earlier.. Thought some of you might enjoy the read... especially point #3 about GRAMMAR!! I know it's a different ballgame for kids with dyslexia and grammar, but yeah... I've told plenty of parents, don't even worry about teaching parts of speech and diagramming sentences. It has no practical application for kids with LDs and is just extra torture! :O (YEP. I said that)

 

The article: http://educationbythenumbers.org/content/3-lessons-science-teach-writing_2194/

Thanks for sharing the article.

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Older ds finds them patronizing and just wants to cut to the chase already. I'm thinking we do just need to go back to the Writing Skills books and Verticy. It was working as long as every composition could be about car engines or planes. Can I just teach the kid to do technical writing and be done with it?

 

My view is that as long as something is working, stick with it until it stops working.  At age 10 maybe even at 14 writing only about cars and planes is fine. If he is going to go to college, eventually in high school maybe a little more range would be needed.

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I also think using tech writing is an excellent idea. I never had much to say in composition classes, but I became a tech writer. It's a wonderful skill, and that approach gives you room to grow. So much of tech writing is about audience analysis and knowing what needs to be communicated. The same information might be presented in several formats if you need technical specifications, reference sections, how-to information, conceptual information, etc. Even indexing is a great thinking skill for organizing ideas--Shellagh Gallagher has some stuff on Royal Fireworks Press about teaching kids to organize and reorganize the same information as a way of pushing them up the levels of thinking in Bloom's taxonomy. It reminds me quite a bit of the skills required to build a really good index.

 

My older son has a lot of trouble with written expression (ASD), and the next thing I plan to try for writing is our set of Evan Moor science centers. We have several wordy ones where he could rearrange picture and word cards several different ways and just use the words on the cards, tweak it a bit, and structure a series of essays. I'm not sure how it will go, but we'll see!

 

If your son is all about car engines and such, could you approach grammar with a car engine analogy and maybe work on drawing analogies between a car engine and the components of speech and language? I really don't think that waiting a bit on grammar is a bad thing, and trying Shurley or another program might be perfect, but that's just a thought I had that won't require a new program. And if it sounds like, "I've been standing on my head for years to teach grammar, and she's suggesting I do what?," feel free to ignore. :-)

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