Grammar for a struggling 6th grader

[Pixie]

I am using Voyages in English as our main grammar but it is becoming very obvious that it is moving way too fast for my dd. She has had very little grammar to this point and has always struggled with it. We are at the point where she has trouble identifying nouns, verbs, adjectives... If I sit with her and prompt her with questions she gets it but leave her alone with a sentence and it becomes a total disaster. I am looking for any and all ideas in how to help her get over this. Is there any curriculum/workbook that I could get to help her (needs to be secular)

[Ellie]

You could do EG, which is *just* grammar (and punctuation and capitalization). She needs to know what a subject and a verb are, but otherwise, she doesn't need to have any prior grammar knowledge at all. Each level teaches the same things; it's just the reading level and the number of sentences in each lesson that are different, so it would be your choice to do either EG 5 or 6 (some 11yos can do EG Plus, but it won't hurt for your dd to do 5 or 6).

 

I would NOT recommend Daily Grams at this point, as it is review and assumes from the beginning knowledge that your dd may not yet have.

[MIch elle]

We make our own grammar flash cards and do them EVERYDAY until memorized - EVERY school year. :tongue_smilie:

[angela&4boys]

I am using Voyages in English as our main grammar but it is becoming very obvious that it is moving way too fast for my dd. She has had very little grammar to this point and has always struggled with it. We are at the point where she has trouble identifying nouns, verbs, adjectives... If I sit with her and prompt her with questions she gets it but leave her alone with a sentence and it becomes a total disaster. I am looking for any and all ideas in how to help her get over this. Is there any curriculum/workbook that I could get to help her (needs to be secular)

 

We had great results with Winston Grammar with our two eldest sons. It was especially helpful for our second ds who was in a similar place as your dd at the age of 11.

 

I'm also planning to implement MIch elle's grammar flashcards idea. Simple, yet genius. ;-)

[Pixie]

We make our own grammar flash cards and do them EVERYDAY until memorized - EVERY school year. :tongue_smilie:

 

What do you put on the flash cards?

She can easily tell you the definition for a noun or an adjective, but the issue comes when she needs to identify them in a sentence.

[Matryoshka]

You could do EG, which is *just* grammar (and punctuation and capitalization). She needs to know what a subject and a verb are, but otherwise, she doesn't need to have any prior grammar knowledge at all. Each level teaches the same things; it's just the reading level and the number of sentences in each lesson that are different, so it would be your choice to do either EG 5 or 6 (some 11yos can do EG Plus, but it won't hurt for your dd to do 5 or 6).

 

 

:iagree: We did EG6 last year, and it was great. Up to then their grammar had consisted of Grammar Rock and Mad Libs (still not bad ideas for a supplement to help get down the parts of speech), and some Editor in Chief. The way Easy Grammar has you take out the prepositional phrases first makes it so easy to find the subject and verb, and also helps immensely seeing what the other words are "doing" in the sentence.

 

I would put in the caveat to make sure you go over every single sentence she gets wrong and talk about why before moving on (I'd go over things 2-3 times a week) - that really cements things. I don't think the program would've worked the same way for us if I'd just handed them the workbook.

 

I bought just the teacher guide - the blank student pages are all in it along with the answers and teaching tips.

[SilverMoon]

.

Edited June 9 by SilverMoon

[StephanieZ]

I'd add some MadLibs on the side and do grammar games on the white board, to see if that will get her over the hurdle, before ditching a perfectly good curriculum. :) My kids and I do all sorts of goofing off on the white board when they come to something new in grammar. I make silly sentences for them to work on the new part of speech or method, then they do the same for me as soon as I leave the room.

 

If you're sure you want a whole new curriculum, I'd vote for Rod and Staff English 5.

 

I second a vote for R&S if you are looking for a whole new program. Get it all (workbook, tests, teachers, student) and do it all in order. (Oral teaching/practice, then the lesson, then any worksheets.) Each year pretty much reteaches everything (at least through 6) and I know it works OK to skip a level here or there, but I haven't "started in the middle" with an older child. Frankly, I'd probably start with R&S4 and then plan to skip to R&S6 next year. It is really solid and very clearly laid out. It's been painless with my dc and they have easily mastered the materials.

[mommyrooch]

You could do EG, which is *just* grammar (and punctuation and capitalization). She needs to know what a subject and a verb are, but otherwise, she doesn't need to have any prior grammar knowledge at all. Each level teaches the same things; it's just the reading level and the number of sentences in each lesson that are different, so it would be your choice to do either EG 5 or 6 (some 11yos can do EG Plus, but it won't hurt for your dd to do 5 or 6).

 

I would NOT recommend Daily Grams at this point, as it is review and assumes from the beginning knowledge that your dd may not yet have.

 

I completely agree with this. My son is 11. We use Easy Grammar Plus. He has been doing grammar for years though so you would probably want to start your daughter out in 5 or 6 first.

 

He used to do CLE Language Arts and he hated it! When I switched him to EG everything got soooo much easier for him.

 

EG teaches the kids the prepositional phrase approach to grammar. It teaches them to identify prepositional phrases in sentences and mark them out. Once you mark out the prepositional phrases all that is left is the "meat" of the sentence. The kids are taught prepositions so they can then find the prepositional phrases. They are then taught that a prepositional phrase will start with a preposition and end with a noun or pronoun.

 

For example, If you had the statement "Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go." Over, through, and to are prepositions so the child would mark out (Over the river), (through the woods) & (to grandmother's house) All that is left in the sentence is the words and we & go. After all of the "extra" has been removed from the sentence it is very easy now for the child to see that the subject is we and the verb is go. A prepositional phrase will never contain the subject or verb of the sentence.

 

Once they get good at marking out the prepositinal phrases it then expands and teaches them all of the components.

 

This is certainly not a complete list but some examples of things covered in the book are verbs, direct objects, predicate nominatives, predicate adjectives, nouns, appositives, gerunds, interjections, conjunctions, types of sentences, sentences fragments and run-ons, phrases and clauses, adverbs, double negatives, pronouns, antecedents, punctuation, capitalization and letters such as how to write a friendly letter, a business letter and envelopes.

 

This approach has just worked wonders for my son. It is hard to explain exactly how it works. I encourage you to log on to eg's site www.easygrammar.com and look at this program. It literally changed the way my son looked at grammar. He used to struggle with grammar. After starting him in EG he took off. It was like a light came on for him. He jumped approx. 2 grades in one year since he started using this. He is now at a 7th grade level in grammar and he actually enjoys it. ;)

 

Good luck with whatever you decide.

[HollyDay]

Ruth Heller has some amazing books that have really helped when we have struggled with a particular part of speech. They are colorful, beautifully illustrated and usually done in rhyme. I cannot recommend these enough.

 

Also Winston is wonderful.

[Vida Winter]

I recommend Michael Clay Thompson materials -- begin at the easiest level. Grammar Island (only need to get the TM) can be read through in a few days with an older student. Practice Island (need TM and Student book) contains 100 sentences to diagram in MCT's unique way (4 part analysis, not "branching"). After completing Practice Island (do a few sentences a day) your student will have an excellent grasp of not only the parts of speech but how they fit together in a sentence.

 

You can move on through the series from then on. It is a very enjoyable and fast way to learn grammar, and less hit-and-miss than other grammar programs.

[Lori D.]

... We are at the point where she has trouble identifying nouns, verbs, adjectives... Is there any curriculum/workbook that I could get to help her (needs to be secular)

 

 

Part of what makes Winston work so well (in my opinion) is the clear explanation and "clues" the program gives you for determining parts of speech and the 7 noun functions. The program then "visualizes" those clues on the "cue cards" and the student uses the cards to first help identify the parts of speech, and then label each part of speech in the sentence. The first 20 of the 30 lessons are on identifying and practicing parts of speech. The last 10 lessons are on identifying the seven noun functions.

 

Some GREAT -- fun and memorable! -- ways of reinforcing the parts of speech:

- Schoolhouse Rock: Grammar Rock DVD (short catchy songs with a little animated music video to learn and remember the parts of speech)

- Schoolhouse Rock: Grammar Rock CD computer games

- Grammar Ad Libs -- fun "fill in the blank" to practice a specific part of speech and end with a silly story

- Mad Libs -- longer stories, practicing multiple parts of speech

- Grammar Gorillas free online games -- http://www.funbrain.com/grammar/

 

 

I'm a chronic curriculum"tweaker" and this is how we modified Winston:

1. I tweaked their explanations and put them into simple steps

2. We practiced 4 sentences a day on the whiteboard using colored markers to mark the parts of speech and show relationship, rather than using the cards

3. Did Winston 3 days a week, taking about 10 minutes a day

 

Below is a detailed idea of how we did Winston, and explained the parts of speech and noun functions. Hope something is of help here! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

 

Day 1:

- Introduce the concept from the TM

- Go over the "clues" on the card

- Do a sample sentence

- Write 4 of the student workbook sentences on the board and then have student mark the sentence:

 

a. first go thru and write abbrev. of each part of speech they know above each word (so there will be words unmarked in those early lessons)

N = noun

V = verb

PN = pronoun

ADJ = adjective

ADV = adverb

PREP = preposition

CONJ = conjunction

INT = interjection

 

b. I introduced the 2 parts of a *sentence* (subject = the who or what of the sentence, predicate = the action or being of the subject -- in other words, everything else other than the subject) -- and I had them mark the subject with a single underline, predicate with a double underline, and separate the two with a vertical line. For any sentence, have them start with telling you the simple subject and the simple predicate -- i.e., the 2 words that the sentence is all about -- everything else just adds onto that in some way.

 

c. once you know nouns, for awhile I had them tell me if it was a common or proper noun

 

d. once you know verbs, always mark whether it's an action verb or verb of being (also called a "linking verb") -- this is a big help later on for determining noun "jobs" or functions -- Also, it is helpful to memorize the dozen or so helping verbs at some point and always label them as such, and realize they are part of the "verb phrase" -- that sometimes a verb needs 1-2 helping verbs to do its job.

 

e. once you know adjectives and adverbs, use an arrow to show what word each modifies ("adds onto" -- get it? ADjective, ADverb, ADD onto?)

 

f. once you know prepositions (note the word "position" in the word "prePOSITION -- prepositions are words that often tell you about the position of a noun in the sentence; example: "UNDER the table"; "BEYOND the river"), realize you'll have a prepositional phrase -- always starts with a preposition and ends when you get to the first noun or pronoun; mark the phrase with parentheses, and mark the noun that ends the preposition with OP for "object of the preposition

 

g. once you know conjunctions, remind them that coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, etc.) always connect the SAME two things -- either 2 words or two phrases or two clauses (that will be helpful when you get to Winston Advanced).

 

h. interjections are easy -- the word interject means to "throw into", so interjections "throw some emotion into" the sentence; gotta love that Schoolhouse Rock song of "Interjections!"

 

Day 2

1. review the concepts

2. write out 4 more sentences

3. student marks as above

 

Day 3

1. review the concepts

2. write out 4 more sentences

3. student marks as above

 

The following week, we'd either repeat or do a few more sentences on Day 1, or if they were ready, we'd move on to the next lesson.

 

 

 

When you get to the last 10 lessons and are learning how to determine which function of the seven Noun Functions are in the sentence, we used these as our clues:

 

3 "Object" Functions (these ONLY follow an action verb)

1 = object of the preposition

2 = direct object

3 = indirect object

 

4 "Naming" Functions

1 = subject of the sentence

2 = appositive (renames the subject right after the subject)

3 = noun of direct address (directly names the subject with a proper noun name)

4 = predicate nominative (nominative comes from the word meaning "name", so this is a renaming of the subject IN the predicate -- in other words, after the verb; also this can ONLY come AFTER a verb of being/linking verb)

[Quiver0f10]

What do you put on the flash cards?

She can easily tell you the definition for a noun or an adjective, but the issue comes when she needs to identify them in a sentence.

 

I highly recommend Winston. I go over every sentence with my son using the winston cards and he is able to pull out the nouns, verbs etc. I love the visual aspect for him.

[PeterPan]

In addition to the other great programs suggested here, I'd also suggest looking at Shurley. The sentences are usually interesting, and the lessons are brief. No hands-on like Winston, but it does use a very clear, pretty much fool-proof Q&A format for working through the sentences. It's pretty much no-fail, imho.