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My niece is a teacher and posted some studies a while back about studying grammar separately and how it isn't the best way for kids to learn it. I can't remember the exact reasoning, but basically the conclusion was that it didn't need to be taught as a standalone subject, or at least that wasn't the most beneficial way for kids to learn it.

 

It might have gone so far as to say kids don't really need actual grammar instruction to be successful with writing/speaking, but I may be remembering incorrectly.

 

Is this a newer approach, akin to kids not needing phonics, or has this been around a while?

 

What do you think? (And sorry this is so disjointed; I can get more detailed info from my niece, but this is the jist of it.

Edited by StaceyinLA
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My niece is a teacher and posted some studies a while back about studying grammar separately and how it isn't the best way for kids to learn it. I can't remember the exact reasoning, but basically the conclusion was that it didn't need to be taught as a standalone subject, or at least that wasn't the most beneficial way for kids to learn it.

 

It might have gone so far as to say kids don't really need actual grammar instruction to be successful with writing/speaking, but I may be remembering incorrectly.

 

Is this a newer approach, akin to kids not needing phonics, or has this been around a while?

 

What do you think? (And sorry this is so disjointed; I can get more detailed info from my niece, but this is the jist of it.

 

I think there should be *some* study; I just don't think that children need to study grammar every.single.year for 12 years. Yes, I believe that they don't have to study grammar in order to write/speak well (the author of Writing Strands believed this, as well). Historically, grammar was not specifically taught every year in schools, either.

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It might have gone so far as to say kids don't really need actual grammar instruction to be successful with writing/speaking, but I may be remembering incorrectly.

 

The bolded is definitely true for many children. 

 

We never did formal grammar instruction in English. We studied grammar in foreign languages.

My goal for my kids was not an ability to diagram and name clauses and parts of speech, but rather the ability to speak and write with correct grammar and semantics. Formal grammar studies were not necessary to achieve this goal for my kids. Both are excellent speakers and writers with an instinctive grasp of the language. 

 

We did a quick review for standardized test prep, so they would be able to diagnose the incorrect sentence parts quickly by watching for the typical mistakes that would be tested: subject-verb agreement, tenses agreement, misplaced modifiers, etc. They would not make these mistakes in their own writing, but the tests don't test that.

Edited by regentrude
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My belief is that small children learn grammar most naturally from exposure to voluminous amounts of correctly spoken language, then speaking and being spoken too and having their grammar corrected in real time.

 

I think that explicit, systematic grammar is a subject that should be learned and studied in a group school environment, but would probably be most beneficial in 3rd-8th grade, or 4th-8th grade. 

 

In a homeschool environment, you have the flexibility to teach grammar if needed, or not.

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I got a perfect score on every standardized grammar test and I never thought about grammar rules. I just read a lot of good writing and I knew when something looked wrong. It's probably helpful to learn how to diagram a sentence and to learn the rules, so that when you're wondering which one is correct you have something to go back to, but I think reading quality writing should take much more time than grammar study.

 

Also, if you study Latin, suddenly everything about English grammar will be crystal clear. At least it was for me.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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My niece is a teacher and posted some studies a while back about studying grammar separately and how it isn't the best way for kids to learn it. I can't remember the exact reasoning, but basically the conclusion was that it didn't need to be taught as a standalone subject, or at least that wasn't the most beneficial way for kids to learn it.

 

It might have gone so far as to say kids don't really need actual grammar instruction to be successful with writing/speaking, but I may be remembering incorrectly.

 

Is this a newer approach, akin to kids not needing phonics, or has this been around a while?

 

What do you think? (And sorry this is so disjointed; I can get more detailed info from my niece, but this is the jist of it.

For everyone like your niece, there will be 5 people who did research that find that separate study is important. 

 

Just because she is a teacher does not mean she knows more than you. All she knows from her training is how to handle classroom management and stay in compliance with laws, etc. What she knows from her research is nothing more than the research you can do. 

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Knowing grammar is helpful in figuring out *why* something in a sentence that sounds 'off' is or is not actually 'off'.

 

I agree that extensive, engaging exposure to excellent language is the best teacher of grammar, but there is so much bad grammar in writing right now, particularly in children's writing (I'm looking at you, Junie B Jones!), and in popular speech, that I think you have to be pretty selective to ensure that exposure, particularly if you have an imitative child who is going to soak up whatever he hears.  Some children will need detailed, explicit grammar training more for their writing than others, but most need it sometimes.  

 

Also, knowing grammar is invaluable for learning foreign languages.  I can't imagine doing that well without it.

 

I don't think it has to be taught for 12 years straight, but it does need to be taught to mastery.  That can be done in 2-3 years or over a longer period of time.

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I don't believe it needs to be a stand-alone topic. In our house, grammar is studied through Latin and English writing. Specific points of grammar are isolated and examined, but we've not done an intensive grammar curriculum. 

Edited by wintermom
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Agreeing with Carol in Cal.

 

Since my kids have studied grammar, they understand the reasons why when I edit their compositions.

 

Grammar knowledge has also been a tremendous help to my son in his German courses.

 

I don't think it matters so much the particular way one teaches grammar. It could be taught through a separate program, through learning Latin, or in the context of a literature course.

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For everyone like your niece, there will be 5 people who did research that find that separate study is important. 

 

Just because she is a teacher does not mean she knows more than you. All she knows from her training is how to handle classroom management and stay in compliance with laws, etc. What she knows from her research is nothing more than the research you can do. 

 

That's assuming a lot. Education research can include data from thousands of children, which is pretty tough for the average parent to do.  There is certainly some poor research published, and some quality research that is ignored, but it's not necessary to toss out all research and just use your own anecdotal information. 

Edited by wintermom
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I'm in between. I have one child especially who doesn't do well with "discovery-oriented" methods (ie, read a lot of good writing and they'll just know good grammar). He especially appreciates and thrives with direct teaching. Neither of my kids picked up on things like irregular word forms naturally, or things like run-on sentences. Direct instruction in grammar, and then direct instruction in how to apply what they had learned to their writing were both important parts of their education. I don't think one needs to spend tons of time identifying parts of speech or doing endless declensions in English, but I do think there is value in hitting grammar once in elementary, once in junior high, and once in high school (which is also what Julie Bogart of Bravewriter used to say), and then helping students apply what they know in their writing.

 

Teaching grammar gives you a common language, which is another benefit. It's much easier to say, "you don't need a comma between your independent clause and dependent clause," or "use a comma before your conjunction" than it is to have to explain everything thoroughly each time. 

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My youngest brother grew up during the "whole language" fad where it was believed that simply reading good literature was enough. Maybe it was for some kids, but not for my brother. He was an avid reader and scored >700 on the verbal portion of the SAT. Somehow managed to pull B's in Honors English despite being unable to write a coherent essay.

 

He asked me for feedback one time on a draft of his college honors thesis. I would expect a certain number of errors in a rough draft but my brother had so many that I was unable to comprehend what he was attempting to say. He knew that what he wrote "didn't sound right" but he was unable to fix it. I mentioned that when I was having trouble correcting my writing, it helped me to diagram the sentence in question. He had no clue how to do that, so I had to spend the better part of an evening giving him a crash course in it. He thanked me profusely afterwards and said he wished he had learned it in middle school like I had.

 

If I had known at the time about Michael Clay Thompson's 4 level parsing technique, I probably would have started there because it's easier. My kids start with MCT and I only teach them Reed-Kellogg diagrams later. I'm not certain that either remembers how to do a Reed-Kellogg diagram at this point without a "cheat sheet" but the goal is not to draw a diagram but to improve their understanding of sentence structure.

 

I like the combo of MCT and Don Killgalllon's materials for teaching grammar.

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Studies like that seem to imply that the only purpose of studying grammar is to write "properly." That is only half the picture. I do teach my kids grammar so that I can easily communicate to them how to improve their sentences. But grammar study can also help us understand the writing of others. An excellent book on this topic is "The War Against Grammar" by David Mulroy. I also have friends who grew up in the 80s with no grammar instruction in public school, and they each mentioned that they could not learn a foreign language in college because they did not understand any of the grammar terms and concepts. Whenever I see "studies" showing no benefit to grammar instruction, I assume the studies are really showing that it is the way the teachers are teaching grammar that is the problem, not the study of grammar itself. Or, the researchers are myopically asking the wrong questions about what grammar study is and does. There are so many antedotes coming from private school and homeschooling circles in favor of grammar instruction.... I just can't believe the types of studies that imply it is worthless.

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I think it needs to be focused on periodically in instruction. However, the way that many homeschoolers do it as a full subject every year for 8 years seems beyond unnecessary to me. There's a happy medium where the majority of grammar instruction is in context of reading and writing but where you either spend time doing a grammar unit every year to introduce specific concepts or where you take time out once or twice to do a grammar year. I think it's invaluable in learning a foreign language... but I also think that it can be learned *through* learning a foreign language if it's done right. Sometimes learning how other languages arrange their words and phrases helps you understand English better.

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I'm in the camp of official training from 3rd to 8th, about 2-3 times a week.  

 

Before that--nah.  After that--nah, unless there's some sort of grammatical error that comes up repeatedly in their writing and we have to review a concept.

 

 

 

 

 

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I have changed views on this topic. When my oldest was in public school they did a pilot program where they dropped all spelling and grammar instruction. For her this began in second grade when we switched from private to public school. The kidz al wrot like this fore a yeer or two. Then it got better. I thought, okay, so it works. I was never taught formal grammar either and used to be a fairly decent writer back when I did it regularly.

 

However, now, seeing in myself and in her how easily writing is influenced by what you read, I am glad we have been doing grammar instruction in our homeschool. If you are constantly exposed to poor grammar, which the internet is swimming in and that's where most teens and adult spend a great deal of their time, your grammar can suffer. People may disagree, but I've seen it in myself. So at least in this family, that's the way we will do it- formal lessons. The internet allows you to be sloppy, so unless you are doing a lot of formal writing you begin to question yourself once you're out of a classroom. I want my kids to have the mechanics memorized so the KNOW the rules and not just that it sounds right, which is also how I was taught. I read a ton, but it doesn't change the fact that I now question myself quite often on certain mechanics when I write myself. So I think writing had more to do with that than simply reading more and being exposed.

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I remember taking a college course designed to teach grammar and basic linguistics to students earning a teaching degree. Grammar for teachers, basically. We had to spend whole class periods on concepts like comma rules, because no one knew what a clause was. We had another class period on direct objects, just so the professor could explain when to use "whom." Another class period covered dangling modifiers. These were students that had already had general college English courses. It was so stupid. What was even more stupid was the attitude of some of the students in the class... future teachers.... they thought the class was a waste of time, since they got good grades in general English writing. It seemed they didn't care that they couldn't explain *why* writing a sentence one way was better than another.

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One size does not fit all.  It never has and it never will, especially when it comes to education.

 

I think this really does depend on the child and the amount of exposure to good writing/language in their daily lives.  We are not all the same person.  We aren't robots.   Different people have different strengths and weaknesses and different ways of learning and different families provide different levels and quality of exposure to language.  Any person or study that says x and such type of teaching is THE way to go, is the BEST way to teach ALL students, is not taking that into account.  Teachers in a classroom with many children have to, by necessity because of our currently structured educational system, follow a general plan for all kids regardless of learning styles, strengths, weakness, home exposure to language, etc.  Most educational studies follow that same paradigm.  That doesn't mean that results are going to be true when applied to individuals.

 

For some children they will pick things up intuitively, even with NO formal grammar instruction.  If they are in a quality language rich environment they will probably do really well, even without much grammar taught explicitly.  However, even in those instances, it helps to have at least some grammar exposure that is a bit more explicit for the many reasons mentioned up thread.

 

For others, that just isn't enough.  They are going to need more specific instruction over a longer period of time.

 

And for others, they are going to need a LOT of exposure, over a long period of time, and very explicitly taught.

 

And some really enjoy grammar so hey, if doing years and years and years of extremely explicit grammar and learning it to the nth degree makes them happy, go for it.  

 

But again, I think in large part it depends on the specific child and the amount of exposure to quality language sources in their daily lives.

 

If a person is homeschooling they can judge based on their individual child and adjust as needed.  In a classroom setting I would rather air on the side of caution and at least include some formal grammar instruction in 3rd-6th grade.  I don't think most kids would need daily constant separate grammar instruction.  After that, maybe have a refresher course alongside a literature course in 9th grade in High School.

Edited by OneStepAtATime
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I have changed views on this topic. When my oldest was in public school they did a pilot program where they dropped all spelling and grammar instruction. For her this began in second grade when we switched from private to public school. The kidz al wrot like this fore a yeer or two. Then it got better. I thought, okay, so it works. I was never taught formal grammar either and used to be a fairly decent writer back when I did it regularly.

 

However, now, seeing in myself and in her how easily writing is influenced by what you read, I am glad we have been doing grammar instruction in our homeschool. If you are constantly exposed to poor grammar, which the internet is swimming in and that's where most teens and adult spend a great deal of their time, your grammar can suffer. People may disagree, but I've seen it in myself. So at least in this family, that's the way we will do it- formal lessons. The internet allows you to be sloppy, so unless you are doing a lot of formal writing you begin to question yourself once you're out of a classroom. I want my kids to have the mechanics memorized so the KNOW the rules and not just that it sounds right, which is also how I was taught. I read a ton, but it doesn't change the fact that I now question myself quite often on certain mechanics when I write myself. So I think writing had more to do with that than simply reading more and being exposed.

I agree with the Internet and being exposed to poor grammar on a daily basis. Also, I notice many popular kids "fun" reading to have abysmal grammar. I am doing FLL with my littles just because it is easy and they think it is fun. With that said, I do think it is more natural to teach it along with other things which played into my decision to switch to ELTL for next year. I don't think it needs to be beat in every year but I think the advantages I see are 1.) I can talk to the kids about how to improve their writing, 2.) It does help in college and on standardized tests 3.) It makes learning a foreign language much easier. 4.) It helps build logic skills and even supports math language understanding and music theory. Being able to see rhyme and reason to structure helps with this in other areas.

 

So I do see value but I don't hammer it.

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Everything OneStep said, and also, we need to take into context the culture the child is growing up in and likely to live in as an adult. Writing is an art. Even if the art of writing is prioritized over other pursuits, there is a wide variety of style within any art.

 

I know, another one of my crazy responses that is off topic. But it isn't off topic. The world is a big big place, and we cannot decide what and how grammar needs to be taught to an individual student until we decide what narrow slice we are preparing for.

 

Some public school teachers are dealing with a lot more diversity in their classrooms than others. What they think and say and do often reflects that.

 

Your best advice will come from someone is your own trench, rather than someone in a far away trench, or no trench at all.

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I think it depends on what you mean by "seperate instruction". 

 

It's entirely possible to do focused grammer instruction within other writing and reading work, rather than as an entirely seperate stream of instruction.  I'd not be in the least surprised to find that approach was much more effective.  One of the major failings I've seen with totally separate instruction is that the student can do the exercises but cannot apply the learning to any real writing he or she does.

 

And FWIW the most effective grammar instruction I've seen has been study of a second language.

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A different perspective - while my children learn(ed) a basic understanding of English grammar as part of a (structural-language approach) Latin course, dh gives them more advanced instruction in linguistics and logic later on. This is "grammar" as an independent academic study, though, rather than as a means toward improved writing or speaking. But yes, in this sense they learn it as a separate subject.

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I just joined here today, so I hope I can still chime in.

 

I see grammar like I see music. Learning the notes and scales as small components of a full measure and then of a full musical piece make for a well-grounded and well-rounded musician. Of course, it is tedious. But, I actually think that tedium can be a benefit to kids these days - hard work for the sake of hard work in music, grammar, or writing cursive, for example, mold the mind and make it stronger. So maybe the overall goal is not to learn how to diagram a sentence, but instead the goal is to become a stronger thinker and learner - and writer.

 

Another way to look at it is with art. So many of the masters we love today first received instruction from their teachers in technique, and other seemingly elementary basics, etc.. Once they learned the rules, they could break them. Music and grammar are like this too.

 

I think the best musicians, artists, and writers fall into this category of knowing and understanding the "rules" very well, but making things their own (breaking the rules) once they have mastered the fundamentals.

 

We're a young h-s family. We are just wrapping up our first year of Shurley Grammar with our 7-year-old. We do not follow every lesson to a T because it is a lot. But, I have enjoyed this work because it has taught him sentence structure. For example, a sentence must have a Noun, Verb, Subject, make complete sense, have a capital letter, and an end mark. He had to learn about each of those components. Now, he knows how a complete sentence looks and sounds when he reads or writes. The lessons also taught the beginnings of writing expository paragraphs, friendly letters, and thank you notes.

 

So far, I am a fan of separate grammar instruction.

 

 

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Yes, I think it is important, and we do grammar as a stand alone subject. I think it is important for kids to see how correctly written sentences are structured. Some kids are able to construct sentences "by ear" because they've been exposed to good writing, other kids (mine), even though they've been read to since the cradle, can't write a decent sentence to save their life and they need to specifically study subjects, verbs, etc.

 

However, another reason I think it is important is from a critical thinking standpoint. A huge pet peeve of mine is people who look at education from a strictly pragmatic standpoint. "How am I going to use this in the real world?" As in...."why learn algebra? Who uses algebra on a daily basis?" And then everyone gets all worked up because nobody has any critical thinking skills anymore. Grammar study and studying the grammar of other languages, math beyond arithmetic, learning to play music....all cause us to learn to think critically. It's an exercise of the brain. So, when I teach my kids grammar, and especially diagramming, I'm not only teaching it to them so they know how to write, but I want them to be able to analyze a sentence, see how the parts work together as a whole, analyze the function of each part and now it relates to the other parts.

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One of the major failings I've seen with totally separate instruction is that the student can do the exercises but cannot apply the learning to any real writing he or she does.

 

 

Yep.

 

I think it is kind of like math instruction. A lot of kids are taught how to divide fractions - flip the second fraction and multiply - but what is the point, if they can't apply that to a real problem? Doesn't mean teaching the rule for dividing fractions is bad, it just means it needs something else with it. Some kids pick up the concepts behind math or grammar naturally. Not me, though. I need the "why" of everything explicitly explained, preferably visually in a diagram or bar model. So I will use my Rod and Staff English and my Singapore math and just keep truckin'.

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The bolded is definitely true for many children.

 

We never did formal grammar instruction in English. We studied grammar in foreign languages.

My goal for my kids was not an ability to diagram and name clauses and parts of speech, but rather the ability to speak and write with correct grammar and semantics. Formal grammar studies were not necessary to achieve this goal for my kids. Both are excellent speakers and writers with an instinctive grasp of the language.

 

We did a quick review for standardized test prep, so they would be able to diagnose the incorrect sentence parts quickly by watching for the typical mistakes that would be tested: subject-verb agreement, tenses agreement, misplaced modifiers, etc. They would not make these mistakes in their own writing, but the tests don't test that.

This has been my experience as well. Grammar is a tool and some students can intuit the rules from reading and spoken language. Some need more explicit instruction. We have found it won't "stick" for our children when it is divorced from writing mechanics and cannot introduce the subject too early. So many programs seem to group it with reading skills and phoneme awareness and I'm not a fan.

 

What has worked for us is Treasured Conversations, precisely because of the progressive and increasingly involved writing skills the students develop with the program. It's at just the right age range to really be absorbed since basic spelling and pronunciation are down pat, and it builds on itself in such a way that even if the kids forget what an adverb is called, they aren't forgetting its function in their writing.

Edited by Arctic Mama
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I'm still not sure what counts as "seperate instruction".

 

I tend to be a CM homeschooler, and she believed in integrated instruction.  But that absolutly did not mean kids intuited the rules, didn't learn about fairly advanced grammatical ideas or terms, or just learned by reading and hearing excellnt prose.  It meant there was direct instruction within the context of real texts, read for their own sakes, and real student writing.

 

 

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This has been my experience as well. Grammar is a tool and some students can intuit the rules from reading and spoken language. Some need more explicit instruction. We have found it won't "stick" for our children when it is divorced from writing mechanics and cannot introduce the subject too early. So many programs seem to group it with reading skills and phoneme awareness and I'm not a fan.

 

What has worked for us is Treasured Conversations, precisely because of the progressive and increasingly involved writing skills the students develop with the program. It's at just the right age range to really be absorbed since basic spelling and pronunciation are down pat, and it builds on itself in such a way that even if the kids forget what an adverb is called, they aren't forgetting its function in their writing.

 

Yes, this.  Within the neoclassical model, I don't think grammar is actually a grammar level skill.  Mechanics may be, and basic parts of speech, but beyond that I think it's a logic skill.

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Broadly speaking, the fact that something is unnecessary doesn't mean it isn't beneficial. Lots of people pick things up naturally and even excel with them, but when they are required to study the subject in a disciplined manner, it just multiplies their abilities.

 

My kids need some separate instruction in grammar. One will pick up some rules intuitively but not all. My other one requires nearly everything in life to start out on a separate platter and then to have it integrated. He will also focus on the details but miss the forest (which is quite common with grammar instruction anyway). Both of my kids are 2e, so I expect them to be a bit different.

 

I have heard that foreign language instruction really facilitates grammar, but it depends how that instruction goes. I had abysmal foreign language instruction in high school. The teacher was capable, but she had other priorities. She also came from a POV that immersion would make it all work out. I acquired vocabulary, but I was afraid to speak and put sentences together. I really needed more than just "In Spanish, the adjectives come after the noun." It was a wasted two years. By contrast, we'd had a survey course in Spanish for 9 weeks in 8th grade to help us decide on what foreign language to take. That teacher had horrid pronunciation, but she taught us grammar, not just conversational stuff. I learned almost as much in that 9 weeks as I did in two years of high school teaching with the better qualified teacher. It was ridiculous.

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For everyone like your niece, there will be 5 people who did research that find that separate study is important.

 

Just because she is a teacher does not mean she knows more than you. All she knows from her training is how to handle classroom management and stay in compliance with laws, etc. What she knows from her research is nothing more than the research you can do.

Well I certainly do agree that I am capable of my own research. I happen to be kind of intrigued by this study though. FWIW, the actual study and research were done by an older man and seemed to debunk a lot of what schools tend to do.

 

My niece is actually pretty dissatisfied with typical classroom requirements and is always pushing boundaries and looking at alternatives. I certainly didn't take her sharing this (since it wasn't directed at me anyway) to come across as a "she knows best" kind of thing.

 

I was just curious to see what some other moms thought.

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Thanks for all the input! I, personally, always taught grammar to my kiddos. There were some years we did Learning Language Arts through Literature, but others where we did Rod & Staff.

 

I'm in the process of helping my daughters with home schooling and getting prepared to home school, so I was just looking into some of this for them.

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Just from my sample size of seven, there are some who pick up grammar and vocabulary intuitively. There are some that pick up neither and must be formerly taught (rather like an Aspie is with social skills). There are still others that pick up one naturally but need instruction on the other. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule. For me, Grammar and vocabulary are good subjects to cover every year becasue they both lend themselves nicely to almost completely self-study past age 8 or so.

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Yes, I think it is important, and we do grammar as a stand alone subject. I think it is important for kids to see how correctly written sentences are structured. Some kids are able to costruct sentences "by ear" because they've been exposed to good writing, other kids (mine), even though they've been read to since the cradle, can't write a decent sentence to save their life and they need to specifically study subjects, verbs, etc.

 

However, another reason I think it is important is from a critical thinking standpoint. A huge pet peeve of mine is people who look at education from a strictly pragmatic standpoint. "How am I going to use this in the real world?" As in...."why learn algebra? Who uses algebra on a daily basis?" And then everyone gets all worked up because nobody has any critical thinking skills anymore. Grammar study and studying the grammar of other languages, math beyond arithmetic, learning to play music....all cause us to learn to think critically. It's an exercise of the brain. So, when I teach my kids grammar, and especially diagramming, I'm not only teaching it to them so they know how to write, but I want them to be able to analyze a sentence, see how the parts work together as a whole, analyze the function of each part and now it relates to the other parts.

Cardinal Newman, in The Idea of a University, said that a subject is not genuinely a liberal art (and so not truly part of an education) if it is useful -- if must be a thing learned for its own sake. I like your thoughts on learning grammar because it's part of learning what language is.

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I like what SWB said about it, that the intuitive grammar will take you to about first year of university/college. After that, the ideas become too complex and you need a better handle on grammar to express it concisely. That rang true to me and matches my experience in uni.

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So I believe I read the study in question a while go, and if I remember right, they were talking about grammar instruction that was integrated with writing and reading was more meaningful than grammar instruction done in isolation. And that does make sense to me. However, I had almost no grammar instruction in school. The odd teacher tried, periodically, but we had little formal grammar. Run-on sentences confuse me, and I have no idea where to put commas. So, for us, I use Rod and Staff to fill in the gaps in my own knowledge. Charlotte Mason said the same thing 100 years ago. However, it's tough to integrate knowledge you don't have. 

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I like what SWB said about it, that the intuitive grammar will take you to about first year of university/college. After that, the ideas become too complex and you need a better handle on grammar to express it concisely. That rang true to me and matches my experience in uni.

 

Gosh, I can't say I found that to be true - I find that a really alien way to think about it.  I've generally felt the reason so many students don't express themselves concisely is that they don't really know what they want to say.  

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I think it is important to teach grammar. I wasn't taught grammar at all. In fact, I was put in an honors English class and specifically told "you guys are in this class because you don't need grammar instruction". The only thing we did was read novels and write papers about them. We were all pretty good writers. But although I could write, I couldn't tell you anything about clauses or anything beyond parts of speech. I was also an excellent reader, but until I had to teach reading, I had no idea what a short vowel sound was. My kids are not that intuitive. Teaching the why is as important in language as it is in math. Math does not come as intuitively as language to me, so it's easier to explain/teach. (I'm always screaming in my head "I don't know WHY 'thought' is spelled like that- it just is!!!) Looking at the English language through the eyes of a child has really been interesting. I have no idea how I managed to learn it.

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Gosh, I can't say I found that to be true - I find that a really alien way to think about it. I've generally felt the reason so many students don't express themselves concisely is that they don't really know what they want to say.

Well, yes, that's a part of it. It kind of works together, clarifying your sentences/paragraphs helps to clarify your thoughts and vice versa.

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It is most certainly necessary for my daughter whose internal grammar mechanism never developed properly and she still struggles with syntax at age 10.

 

She needs to study grammar for the vocabulary, so she has words with which to talk about words. She needs the diagramming because she often doesn't understand which noun a pronoun is replacing etc.

 

Unfortunately her grammar classes in school now are of poorer quality than what she did with FLL1. Writing a noun in the middle of a page and surrounding it with adjectives is only providing time to forget everything about grammar she used to know.

 

 

I would have done much better with languages if I'd been taught grammar. 

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Quite a few beliefs around long term, separate instruction of grammar seem to be cultural. For example, AU students do not spend time parsing sentences. Grammar is one aspect of literacy training, and is included in lessons as such. It is not really tested, except as an element of written work. 

 

Definitely. 

In Germany, "diagramming" of sentences is completely unknown and not taught.

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Well, yes, that's a part of it. It kind of works together, clarifying your sentences/paragraphs helps to clarify your thoughts and vice versa.

 

Perhaps but - do you really know a lot of people who got past their first year of university and found they couldn't express what they needed to in essays?  And somehow more grammatical knowledge would help that?

 

Of all the writing and thinking problems I've encountered, that isn't a common one.

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Perhaps but - do you really know a lot of people who got past their first year of university and found they couldn't express what they needed to in essays? And somehow more grammatical knowledge would help that?

 

Of all the writing and thinking problems I've encountered, that isn't a common one.

Me. I definitely improved as a writer once I began studying advanced grammar with my kids. Oh, I was fully literate and a voracious childhood reader, and I could fake my way through up to a point. But I threw in commas Willy nilly becasue I didn't understand them and had no idea how to insert clauses. Often I would avoid a more complicated sentence becasue I couldn't be sure I was putting it together properly. Grammar study may not have outwardly changed me all that much, but inwardly I gained a lot more confidence.

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Me. I definitely improved as a writer once I began studying advanced grammar with my kids. Oh, I was fully literate and a voracious childhood reader, and I could fake my way through up to a point. But I threw in commas Willy nilly becasue I didn't understand them and had no idea how to insert clauses. Often I would avoid a more complicated sentence becasue I couldn't be sure I was putting it together properly. Grammar study may not have outwardly changed me all that much, but inwardly I gained a lot more confidence.

 

Hmm, I can see that, but I'm not sure it is the same as saying that without formal grammar, students won't be able to manage university level essay work.

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