R&S Grammar or Growing with Grammar

[Guest]

I am trying to decide between R&S Grammar or Growing with Grammar for my ds9. I have heard good things about both, and bad things about both. I have heard R&S is dry, hard, and kids hate it. I have heard retention is not good with GWG. We were doing CLE LA and I do not want to continue with that. Which grammar program do you think is better?

[carlyincali]

I've used both, and am currently using GWG, and have been for the last three years. I have to say that I loved R&S English, but my kids hated it. It is my kind of meat an potatoes learning.

 

R&S has a ton of writing, (mostly rewriting sentences correctly.) To offset all the writing, which imo was a little much, I had them do most of the assignments in the student textbook. It's a very inexpensive textbook so I that's how I justified that. Whatever they couldn't complete in the textbook by crossing out, underlining, using proofreading marks, etc. they would have to write out. They were still writing about 20 to 30 sentences a day, which I thought was good enough. R&S is tedious work and it does take some time, but worth it.

 

I switched over to GWG because it was more of an independant curriculum. My children like it a lot better. I think they're retention has been fine. There is no writing with GWG. It's just grammar.

 

If I had more time, I would definitely be using R&S English.

[Guest]

Thank you Carla. Anyone else, which program would you prefer?

[ProudGrandma]

I can only comment on GWG....my kids like it and I do too. Since I can't compare it to anyother one, I am probably not much help. As far as rentention...I think my kids are doing fine...each year they repeat what was taught the year before and then they add more detail. It is a fairly independent curriculum...depending on the child of course. Hope that helps some.

[Sue G in PA]

I have used both. My ds12 used R&S and then GWG and he like GWG better. I think b/c it was less writing. However, his retention was poor. I am revisiting R&S this year with the recs from HOD and how they use it. I will not have my son re-copy sentences and such. We will do most of it orally, some stuff on a white board and I will have him do a few exercises in his notebook. I'm hoping it goes better this year.

[Guest]

Thank you all. I actually just decided on FLL3:tongue_smilie:. But I will still have to choose from R&S or GWG down the road. I wish SWB had plans to continue her grammar series.

[Krystan]

I know you say you just decided, but I do want to put in a word for GWG. We did FLL 1&2, then got through about half of FLL3. I found dd's retention to be terrible. The scripting really bothered me, as did the exercises themselves. The answers to exercises seemed spoonfed, and diagrams already had frames, so it was possible for her to get all of the exercises correct, but still not know what she was doing. She was "learning" complicated concepts like predicate nominatives, but I don't think she really understood the difference between a predicate and a verb. She could recite the definition of say a predicate nominative, but not rephrase in her own words or explain its use in a sentence. She hated the "talking down" of the scripted text, but on the other hand the exercises did not help her retain anything.

 

In January, we switched to GWG4, and it has been like night and day. She actually understands what she is doing! They have to make their own sentence diagrams, instead of filling in an empty shell, each day's worksheet includes review from previous lessons, and they actually have to think to complete the exercises (instead of just copying what was done in the example). I like the separate text, so dd can go back and refer to something on her own if she needs to. I can't say enough positive things about it.

 

Just something to think about!

[Plucky]

I've used both and prefer GWG.

[Guest]

I know you say you just decided, but I do want to put in a word for GWG. We did FLL 1&2, then got through about half of FLL3. I found dd's retention to be terrible. The scripting really bothered me, as did the exercises themselves. The answers to exercises seemed spoonfed, and diagrams already had frames, so it was possible for her to get all of the exercises correct, but still not know what she was doing. She was "learning" complicated concepts like predicate nominatives, but I don't think she really understood the difference between a predicate and a verb. She could recite the definition of say a predicate nominative, but not rephrase in her own words or explain its use in a sentence. She hated the "talking down" of the scripted text, but on the other hand the exercises did not help her retain anything.

 

In January, we switched to GWG4, and it has been like night and day. She actually understands what she is doing! They have to make their own sentence diagrams, instead of filling in an empty shell, each day's worksheet includes review from previous lessons, and they actually have to think to complete the exercises (instead of just copying what was done in the example). I like the separate text, so dd can go back and refer to something on her own if she needs to. I can't say enough positive things about it.

 

Just something to think about!

 

Yikes, that is not good. Maybe I should just stick with GWG, which my ds started with at the beginning of this year. I did like it, I was just worried with retention down the road.