Bogged down by English lessons

[MyLife]

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Edited December 9, 2017 by MyLife

[Ms.Ivy]

Have you looked at Well Ordered Language? I am using level one with my 3rd grader this year, and she loves it. It is more wholistic in its approach, presenting grammar in the context of good langauge. It has a lot of poetry and compliments the Writing and Rhetoric series. If the cost is too much, you could just get the teacher's manual with the CD and the PDF supplement, and skip the student text. It was a bit harder for me to learn to teach, coming from doing Rod and Staff with my older kids, but the videos on the publisher's website are very helpful. Www.classicalacademicpress.com/wol

 

First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind are really good, too, if that fits your teaching style.

 

That said, you really don't need grammar study for younger elementary students. You could skip it for a year, no harm done. I like to focus on orthography (spelling, punctuation rules, capitalization, syllabication) and poetry memorization. This provides a strong foundaton for later work in grammar study.

 

I also like the Climbing to Good English series for a quick and thorough overview of grammar and mechanics. We find it very straight-forward and helpful for filling in any gaps. The kids just do one page a day three or four days a week, and that gives us plenty of time to enjoy other language arts like reading aloud, memorizing poetry, or working on Greek or Latin.

[MyLife]

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by MyLife

[MyLife]

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by MyLife

[Ellie]

We used Shurley last year and really loved it. We are using Shurley again this year and started out loving it, but we have recently become bogged down by the lessons.

 

My biggest issue is the layout of the TM and student workbook. My 8yo's biggest issue is the length of the lesson and that it has become "hard." I asked what was hard, and he said that he didn't have the prepositions memorized so that made classifying the sentences difficult. Also, we recently started learning object pronouns and that's difficult for him.

 

He has years of English ahead of him, so I don't want him to start hating grammar. He told me he would like a break. I told him we could take a break from Shurley and try something else, something shorter, something simple, something to review for a bit, BUT I don't want it to be just busy work to check off that grammar box.

 

So, I was thinking of letting him use Growing with Grammar starting in January. What are your thoughts on changing mid year? On Growing with Grammar? On bouncing back a forth between different programs?

 

I had also considering switching to R&S, but I'm concerned that wouldn't give him the "break" he needs.

 

Honestly, you don't need to do grammar next year. My vote would be to do composition with something simple like Writing Strands.

[regentrude]

You don't need formal grammar.

 

This said: why would anyone memorize the prepositions? Once you've seen enough prepositions, you'll recognize which words those are, without memorization.

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

What about something supplemental to understand the relationships of grammar. Something like The Sentence Family or MCT Grammar Island. Then he could get back into more formal lessons later. When my son was in Shirley and could label everything, I found that he didn't have a lot of retention or understanding of the part of speech. We switched to MCT. It was fun, but it gave him more of a foundational understanding. After three years, we are going to Warriners in seventh grade for more mechanics. The Shirley jingles are great for memorization, but the program doesn't always paint the whole picture.

[MyLife]

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by MyLife

[MyLife]

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by MyLife

[Tanaqui]

Well, we are memorizing so that he can pick them out in a sentence, but as I'm typing this I realize how silly that sounds for an 8 year old. 😉

 

It sounds silly for anybody. I know memorizing a list of prepositions is something some people do, but learning what a preposition is and does is more helpful.

[regentrude]

Well, we are memorizing so that he can pick them out in a sentence, but as I'm typing this I realize how silly that sounds for an 8 year old. 😉

 

Even for an older student: what is the goal of picking prepositions out of a sentence? Why is that an important skill to develop?

 

Also, if you find that this is important to you for whatever reason: what is gained from memorizing a word list and picking words from that list out of sentences? It makes more sense to understand what prepositions are and how they function. A person who knows that "under" and "with"  and "to" are prepositions will be able to infer that words like "over", "without" and "from" and similar words are also prepositions.

 

(Not that this has any effect on the ability to read, write, and speak correct and beautiful English.)

[MyLife]

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by MyLife

[MyLife]

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Edited December 9, 2017 by MyLife

[Tanaqui]

But you've got it all backwards! That's like saying he needs to memorize all possible addition equations from 1 + 0 to 999 + 999 in order to understand how addition works.

[MyLife]

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by MyLife

[Ellie]

I plan on starting Writing Strands next year, so feel free to give me your "review."

 

I think Writing Strands is excellent. I only wish it had been written before my children were too old for it. :-) I think it does an excellent job of teaching children how to write, without all the things like requiring "brainstorming," or a specific number of rough drafts, or long checklists, or an emphasis on paragraphs and rules such as every paragraph having to have at least [enter favorite number] of sentences with a beginning statement and an ending statement and [enter favorite number] of supporting sentences.

 

Each level is approximately a semester's worth of writing instruction. The author expected the other part of the year to be literature/reading (and of course, that doesn't mean you have to do one semester of each; it just means that he thought English would include equal parts of literature/reading and composition. He did not think a formal study of grammar was important, or spelling. FTR, he and his wife were both English teachers. :-)

[8filltheheart]

And actually I take back what I said about memorizing prepositions to be silly. It's not silly. It's useful. He needs to memorize them so that he can find the prepositional phrase in a sentence. If he can find the prepositional phrase in a sentence, then he can "see" the purpose of a prepositional phrase. If he can't find the prepositional phrase, then he definitely won't understand it's purpose.

Kids who really understand the grammar they are learning in context of sentences do not need to memorize a list of prepositions. I agree with Regentrude and think approaching grammar as a list of words that perform a specific function is the opposite of teaching kids how to think about grammar. "Like" can be a verb or a preposition. Many words can be adverbs or prepositions. Memorizing a list is limiting.

 

Kids who are taught to think about how words are working together in a sentence vs. grammar in isolation intuitively start to recognize that prepositional phrases function together as unit modifiers. Once they start doing that, the entire preposition/object of a preposition process is essentially mastered without much effort and no confusion over why a word is an adverb and not a preposition, etc bc they understand how the words work together.

[8filltheheart]

It's not backwards at all. It's called the grammar stage. And, I posted this to get ideas to finish out the school year, not to debate prepositions.

I am sorry you feel defensive. That is not the intent. It could be as simple as memorizing a list without context is frustrating your child. Fwiw, I have had 2nd graders master prepositions in a sentence without ever seeing a list. "Grammar stage" does not mean kids can't learn without deep understanding and context.

 

If he is that frustrated, at 8 I would just put it away and revisit in a few months.

[wendyroo]

But you've got it all backwards! That's like saying he needs to memorize all possible addition equations from 1 + 0 to 999 + 999 in order to understand how addition works.

 

:iagree:

 

This is a list of the Top 50 prepositions.  The top 50.  There are many more words that can function as prepositions, so I find it unrealistic to think a child will be able to identify prepositional phrases by just rote memorizing a list of words.  On top of that hurdle, the vast majority of the "top 50 prepositions" can also function as other parts of speech, so just because a child recognizes them in a sentence as a memorized preposition, doesn't at all mean he or she will be able to correctly understand how the word is actually functioning.

 

Think if all grammar was taught as memorized lists...memorizing a list of all the nouns or verbs or adjectives?   :huh:  No, even grammar stage students can learn to identify the various parts of speech by applying the definitions.

 

Wendy

[Soror]

My son never did do well with memorizing out of context. We've done grammar since he was in 1st grade tbh it has only started to sink in this year at 13. He still doesn't have any lists memorized. Different ways of learning work for different kids. He's telling you he is not understanding what he is doing, that is big for an 8yo, good for him. My 10 yo daughter recently told me the exact same thing, she is using FLL4. We are switching gears (using Grammar Island because I own it) and backing up. There is no sense in continuing to go on to more and more complicated parts of the sentence when she doesn't have a good grasp of what we're doing now. So, we'll read through Grammar Island together and do some Mad Libs together to make sure she really has those parts down and then move on from there. Seeing the light bulb finally start to go off for ds at 13 I realize they get it when they are ready, I also remember that I never really felt I understood grammar in school, so I plan to go as slow as needed for it to sink in. 

[MyLife]

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by MyLife

[cintinative]

okay so if you are interested in memorizing prepositions, there is a list that goes along with the song Yankee Doodle based on the CC prepositions list. Note there are a few prepositions missing--aboard being one that I can immediately recall, but it's a start.  This is free.

 

 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Learn-the-Prepositions-to-the-tune-of-Yankee-Doodle-1038208

[Hobbes]

I'm not going to post anymore on this thread, and I'm probably going to take a break from the boards. While there are many kind people here, there are also many harsh people. I was just reaching out for help with grammar. Instead, I got a bunch of responses treating me like I'm an idiot for just trying to teach my son in the way he needs.

 

 

I'm surprised you feel this way. I've been following this thread and I saw nothing harsh and no one treating anyone like an idiot.

 

I think sometimes we need to think about the underlying reasons for why we teach something a certain way (ex: prepositions) and open discussion about differing views us a great way to work through that. Wouldn't it be great to view that kind of discussion as helpful for the thought process, even if in the end you disagree and take a different route? I appreciate the experienced people on this board who have given me food for thought in various areas when I've asked questions.

[Ellie]

It sounds silly for anybody. I know memorizing a list of prepositions is something some people do, but learning what a preposition is and does is more helpful.

 

Easy Grammar begins with memorizing prepositions, because that's the first thing children learn to do: mark out prepositional phrases. Once those are gone, what's left are the subject and verb. And so yes, the children are learning what a preposition is and what it does.

[regentrude]

Easy Grammar begins with memorizing prepositions, because that's the first thing children learn to do: mark out prepositional phrases. Once those are gone, what's left are the subject and verb. And so yes, the children are learning what a preposition is and what it does.

 

Interesting. We learned it the other way round: identify the subject and the predicate. The rest are mostly prepositional phrases :)