MCT Grammar Versus KISS Grammar?

[Kuovonne]

Does anyone have a comparision of MCT grammar versus KISS grammar?

 

It seems that they both have a similar approach to analyzing sentences without diagraming. I like the idea of analyzing a sentence a day, and explaining all the parts of the sentence.

 

I have several other grammar programs (FLL, Simply Grammar, PLL, etc.) but their approaches don't appeal to me.

 

I want a grammar program to do two things: (1) to help with reading comprehension of more complicated texts, and (2) to give DD a vocabulary that I can use when discussing writing.

 

I would be starting at the beginning, although DD does have a pretty good grasp of the first few parts of speech from watching Grammar Rock videos.

[Blessedfamily]

I use both. I've used KISS from the beginning, and just started Grammar Town and Practice Town(The sentence analysis book). I love both, and the sentnece analysis is very similar.

 

The Kiss grammar, as a whole, introduces concepts earlier. The child labels real sentences from classic texts. I can tell you it has given my dd a rock solid foundation in sentence analysis. I purchased the Grammar Town because it is much more condensed. We use it as a summary.

 

With MCT, you do the grammar text at the beginning, and then for the rest of the semester, you work on other literature, and analyze a few sentences a week to keep it fresh.

 

The Practice Town is great. Each page has one sentence and four lines below the sentence. The child evaluates the sentence in 4 ways: part of speech, parts of sentence, phrases, and clauses.

 

In KISS you read a story, then analyze some sentences from that story. You label prep. phrases first, then find subj, verb, complements, etc..in a certain order.

 

To compare the two, the MCT has a clearer visual layout. The 4 step analysis is done on seprate lines under each sentence. Kiss does about the same thing, but you put abbreviations above words and use parentheses and brackets to mark parts of the sentence and clauses. The MCT is definately a cleaner look.

 

However, at least at the level we are using, the sentences in MCT are not as varied as KISS. I had to jump half-way through the book to get to compound-complex sentences.

 

I really like them both, and think using KISS first and then MCT has been perfect for us. Just perfect.

Edited November 8, 2009 by Blessedfamily