Easy Grammar Pro's/Con's

[pamd]

Those of you who use or have used Easy Grammar please tell me your pro's and con's and if you think this is a complete curriculum.:grouphug:

[justasque]

Love it. Easy to teach, easy to grasp, not overwhelming, no tears. Good for late elementary and middle school. A high schooler with a language arts focus would want something that covers more technical topics, but for 90% of kids middle school and below I'd consider it a full curriculum. I've used it with three kids, through middle school. Deceptively easy, because it builds over time, little bit by little bit. My kids bang it out in a few minutes a day, but they learn it and retain it.

[Ellie]

It was our favorite.

 

Not sure what you mean by "complete." It is a complete *grammar* course, but since it doesn't include any writing it wouldn't be a complete *English* course.

[pamd]

Thank you all for responding. I have HWOT and Writing Strands but we used R&S English and we both loved it, we done all oral with it, but I didn't feel like he was retaining it. So I think I am scraping it and useing EG. I just want something easy and to the point and he will retain. Any other thoughts would be appreciated. I tell you at first you think you got it all figured out and then you lose it again.lol:001_huh:

[justasque]

It is a complete *grammar* course, but since it doesn't include any writing it wouldn't be a complete *English* course.

 

Yes, for us, it is grammar only. We also do vocab or spelling (depending on age), writing (for olders), and literature. I start EG at about 3rd grade.

[Miss Sherry]

Those of you who use or have used Easy Grammar please tell me your pro's and con's and if you think this is a complete curriculum.:grouphug:

When I looked at Easy Grammar years ago I thought it looked like a good grammar program. However, my children simply did not retain the information when we used Easy Grammar. We switched to Winston Grammar. Winston Grammar did not look like anything special to me when I looked at it but my two oldest children enjoyed using it and they were retaining what they learned with it. I tried using Easy Grammar again with my youngest daughter and had the same result - she did not learn grammar by using it. So once again I switched to Winston Grammar with much better results.

[Ellie]

Thank you all for responding. I have HWOT and Writing Strands but we used R&S English and we both loved it, we done all oral with it, but I didn't feel like he was retaining it. So I think I am scraping it and useing EG. I just want something easy and to the point and he will retain. Any other thoughts would be appreciated. I tell you at first you think you got it all figured out and then you lose it again.lol:001_huh:

Just so you understand that your dc will probably need more than one year of Easy Grammar to really "retain" what they learn. This is true of *everything.* I don't believe children can do one year of, say, Rod and Staff's English and "retain" all the stuff that they study. I don't think it takes 12 years, but it will take more than one.

[Mandy in TN]

When I looked at Easy Grammar years ago I thought it looked like a good grammar program. However, my children simply did not retain the information when we used Easy Grammar. We switched to Winston Grammar. Winston Grammar did not look like anything special to me when I looked at it but my two oldest children enjoyed using it and they were retaining what they learned with it. I tried using Easy Grammar again with my youngest daughter and had the same result - she did not learn grammar by using it. So once again I switched to Winston Grammar with much better results.

:iagree: Easy Grammar is just a bunch of worksheets where all three of my boys were able to follow the example to complete the page correctly, but they learned nothing.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[Matryoshka]

:iagree: Easy Grammar is just a bunch of worksheets where all three of my boys were able to follow the example to complete the page correctly, but they learned nothing.

 

 

I keep hearing this, but it's not just a bunch of worksheets. Did you use the Teacher's manual and actually teach the program, or did you buy the student workbook and hand it to your kid?

 

If I'd done the latter, my kids wouldn't have gotten anything out of it either. I bought just the TM, taught all the lessons, used just the worksheets I felt were needed, went over everything they missed the next day, and they enjoyed it and retained everything. My younger dd who just listened in learned almost as much as they did without filling out a single worksheet.

 

I wouldn't use the program for more than a year, myself - the levels are all pretty much the same thing over and over and I'd get bored. But I liked it for the year I used it. We've since moved on to MCT.

 

If you're looking for a grammar workbook to hand your kid without doing any teaching yourself, I'd agree that Easy Grammar isn't the right program. The actual lessons are in the manual and written to the teacher; the one-sentence instructions on the top of the worksheets are not intended to be grammar lessons, just instructions. I'd agree that just doing the worksheets without lessons would be insufficent for understanding or retention for many kids.

[Miss Sherry]

:iagree: Easy Grammar is just a bunch of worksheets where all three of my boys were able to follow the example to complete the page correctly, but they learned nothing.

 

HTH-

Mandy

Yes, my impression as well, even with the TE. :glare: It doesn't take years to figure out that a program is ineffective for your children. If you take years to figure that out,you've wasted a lot of valuable time that you should have been using doing something else, such as Winston Grammar. :lol:

The hands on methods used in Winston Grammar were effective for my children. Children that do not need a hands on program to learn grammar may do fine with Easy Grammar. Not every child has the same needs. But Easy Grammar simply was not retained by my children. The TE is of very little help. It is not a program that was appropriate for my older children and also is not appropriate for my youngest daughter. It's not a matter of teaching it correctly. It's simply a matter of the fact that some programs are not going to be the best fit for every child. Regardless of how well they work for others. I will stick with Winston Grammar, thank you very much.

I do not doubt that Easy Grammar has been a good fit for others. However, it was ineffective for my children. NOT because it was incorrectly taught ! I have been teaching for 19 years. I think I can read a TE for Easy Grammar and determine whether or not I am using the program correctly.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Miss Sherry

[Miss Sherry]

..... Did you use the Teacher's manual and actually teach the program, or did you buy the student workbook and hand it to your kid? ........

 

 

 

WOW ! Did I really just read that ? Unbelievable.

 

Please do not try to discredit the teaching ability of other homeschool Moms simply because a program you have found to be effective for you has not been effective for them. What works well for some of us is not always appropriate for others.

Someone using another choice of curriculum than yours is not a personal attack on you. Their children just have different needs and/or the Mom a different way of doing things. There is usually more than one way of doing things. What works well for one family can turn out to be a total disaster for another family. Just be glad you actually have a choice to decide what is best for YOU. Please respect that others also have the right to decide what is best for them without being ridiculed for making a different choice or having a different opinion of a particular textbook or product.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Miss Sherry

[eight_gregorys]

I agree with those that stated it was a lot of worksheets. It did not work for us. My daughter begged to go back to Rod and Staff. (She's in 7th grade and this is the first time she has every complained about a particular curriculum.) Like with most things, I'm sure it does work for some, but I do agree that it is a lot of worksheets and not much in the way of explanations.

 

HTH,

[Liza Q]

I liked it very much for my older girls - but I am using GWG now as I decided to introduce diagramming earlier.

 

I especially like the way it begins with prepositions and the way it has the student label each part of the sentence. I still have my kids do the labeling (even though GWG does not require it) so we can be sure that they have everything straight before they diagram.

[JudoMom]

We are using Easy Grammar 6, 5, 3, and Daily Guided Teaching and Review 2 this year so we have more time to spend on writing (next year we're going back to R&S). My goal this year with grammar was to just not lose ground on grammar, and I think EG will accomplish this goal, and it doesn't take much time daily (we're also doing Daily Grams 3, 5, & 6-I love the sentence combining) and it takes my boys about 15 minutes to do a page from each.

 

I don't like the set up. Teaching notes are interspersed throughout the worksheets, which makes it a bit cumbersome to find which lessons I am supposed to teach. I also don't like the way the teaching notes are written; I can't explain it, but they just rub me the wrong way. I like for my boys to have easy access to the lessons, so if they forget something it's easy to look up the lesson and review.

 

It's filling a need right now, but I won't stick with it long term.

[pamd]

Thank you all for your imputs. I am sooo confused on what to do. Maybe we didn't give R&S a good try. We did everything orally. My ds is in 6th but last year we did R&S 4 which I have now sold. I do still have R&S 5. I don't know what to do. I have heard of Winston Grammar and Grammar with a giggle(I think that is right). My son needs more one on one but I lose him quickly. We do AAS which he loves. He says he loves R&S but I think it is because he just listens and answers the questions orally we do the worksheets and quizzes but he didn't do well on the test for punctuation and captilization because we didn't get to it. Sometimes I wish it would just not be so hard and I hate to battle with him to do work. Any thoughts please share.:confused:

[Storm Bay]

Pros-it's great for teaching prepositions and how to recognize prepositional phrases, which is why we first switched to it. Easy to teach, easy to use and has a review after every main section.

 

Cons--I didn't find it stuck well for my younger two, but that could have been motivation. No diagramming. You have to supplement it with everything else you need to make a complete writing program (but for some people, that could be a pro.)

 

Had something like FLL or Growing with Grammar been available back when we first bought Easy Grammar, we probably would have chosen one of them.

 

All my dc did 2 or 3 Easy Grammar levels before moving to something else.