Had it with MCT. Is there a structural grammar curriculum?

[Violet Crown]

Don't get me wrong, I very much like the MCT poetry and vocabulary books. But I have hurled Grammar Island across the table for the last time. The sky-high recommendations of MCT somehow lulled me into thinking the grammar would not be of the nineteenth-century variety. For pete's sake, linguists didn't come up with structural grammar last night! I refuse to read another false statement* about English grammar to my child, just as I would (I hope) have my limit of a book on the human body that insisted on the theory of the four humours.

 

I don't want to debate structural vs. traditional grammar. Everyone who is happy with traditional grammar, bless you, carry on. But is there anything at all for teaching structural grammar at the elementary level? Anything?

--------------------------------------------

*List of false statements upon request, if it would help identify a usable grammar curriculum, but I really don't want to debate why they're false (in this thread, at least).

[3byzaz]

We absolutely love CLE LA, but you probably already know about it!

[Crimson Wife]

What do you mean by the phrase "structural grammar"? That's not something I'm familiar with, but if you define it, maybe I can help brainstorm a program that will satisfy you. :001_smile:

[Karen in CO]

What do you mean by the phrase "structural grammar"? That's not something I'm familiar with, but if you define it, maybe I can help brainstorm a program that will satisfy you. :001_smile:

And please give an example. I know the definition, but I've never used a structural grammar program, but I may have seen one.

[In the Rain]

:bigear: I'd be interested in hearing more about this. I don't know what structural vs. traditional grammar even means. I am strongly considering MCT, but hadn't realized the grammar instruction might be out of date. :confused:

[Mommyfaithe]

We absolutely love CLE LA, but you probably already know about it!

 

This is exactly what I was going to say. My dd was tutoring a high schooler the other night...in grammar. Ummmmm...she is just finishing up the 600 level...LOL.

 

She loves this series. She says she "Learns so much from it." It contains literary sentences as well as biblical ones. It also contains spelling, and copy work of literary passages. (They call it penmanship, I call it copy work and I have her analyze the passages.)

 

~~Faithe (who was just researching MCT and decided to stick with CLE for grammar and other language skills.)

[Mommyfaithe]

Don't get me wrong, I very much like the MCT poetry and vocabulary books. But I have hurled Grammar Island across the table for the last time. The sky-high recommendations of MCT somehow lulled me into thinking the grammar would not be of the nineteenth-century variety. For pete's sake, linguists didn't come up with structural grammar last night! I refuse to read another false statement* about English grammar to my child, just as I would (I hope) have my limit of a book on the human body that insisted on the theory of the four humours.

 

I don't want to debate structural vs. traditional grammar. Everyone who is happy with traditional grammar, bless you, carry on. But is there anything at all for teaching structural grammar at the elementary level? Anything?

--------------------------------------------

*List of false statements upon request, if it would help identify a usable grammar curriculum, but I really don't want to debate why they're false (in this thread, at least).

 

 

As far as structural vs. traditional, maybe you would like Sentence Composing. It teaches the structure of sentences using literature and then using mimicry of the sentence structure. here is a link:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Sentence-Composing-Elementary-School-Sentences/dp/0325002231

 

(hope that worked. )

I just bought this as a go along for our CLE studies which I feel lacks writing instruction.

 

Faithe

[3byzaz]

Yes, mine have done so well with CLE. It is solid, slightly rigorous, yet gentle at the same time - like they don't know it's good and solid! It covers everything - along with the Reading program, I know everything is getting covered and very efficiently. I hated lots of different LA books everywhere - this is simple and sweet. AND, they like it - which is fairly unusual around here - tee hee!

[Diviya]

Wouldn't structural grammar, as devised by linguists, apply primarily to spoken language, not written?

[treestarfae]

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211965

[Allearia]

I don't want to debate structural vs. traditional grammar. Everyone who is happy with traditional grammar, bless you, carry on. But is there anything at all for teaching structural grammar at the elementary level? Anything?

--------------------------------------------

*List of false statements upon request, if it would help identify a usable grammar curriculum, but I really don't want to debate why they're false (in this thread, at least).

 

I'm intensely curious about stuctural grammar and some examples of false statements, I promise not to debate!

[blessedmom3]

If by structural you mean traditional, we love CLE LA. Very simple to use .Tried or looked at R&S, Abeka and BJU. I like BJU too but only for children who like composition&poetry.

 

In addition, we love these books "If you were an onomatopoeia" or "If you were a noun" ... an adjective, adverb , etc. Check them on amazon. Excellent and fun, great especially for a visual learner. We get them from the library. These books have a touch of MCT :)

[Mommybostic]

As a new MCT user, I'm very curious to see how this thread plays out! We have the first Magic Lens series.

[Daisy]

You might look at Grammar Made Easy.

 

http://www.everyday-education.com/grammar/faq.shtml

 

I don't know much about it but it sounds like what you are looking for.

[justamouse]

As far as structural vs. traditional, maybe you would like Sentence Composing. It teaches the structure of sentences using literature and then using mimicry of the sentence structure. here is a link:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Sentence-Composing-Elementary-School-Sentences/dp/0325002231

 

(hope that worked. )

I just bought this as a go along for our CLE studies which I feel lacks writing instruction.

 

Faithe

 

I bought the Killgallon books for both Ele and High School and am thrilled with them so far.

 

Is that more along the lines of what you are looking for?

[kwg]

--------------------------------------------

*List of false statements upon request, if it would help identify a usable grammar curriculum, but I really don't want to debate why they're false (in this thread, at least).

 

 

I would like to hear what is false if you feel so inclined. I promise not to debate- I am curious.

[Spy Car]

*List of false statements upon request, if it would help identify a usable grammar curriculum, but I really don't want to debate why they're false (in this thread, at least).

 

Requesting :001_smile:

 

Bill

[Irishmommy]

Interested in what you consider false, and I don't like to debate.;)

[Irishmommy]

BTW, I use the Killgallon book also and think it is wonderful.

[Just Robyn]

What about using something like The Language Files and rewording things on your own?

[Violet Crown]

Thanks for the links. I'm off to check some of them out.

 

"Structural grammar" is a pretty old-fashioned, first-half-of-the-twentieth-century term at this point; linguists just say "grammar" now, traditional grammar being that dead. There's a not bad article (unfortunately most of it hidden behind JSTOR) here. Maybe better to say that I'd like a curriculum that teaches English syntax.

 

The things that irk me about MCT/traditional grammar texts are false things such as "there are only eight kinds of words"; subjects and objects can only be nouns or pronouns; "the three little words the, a, and an are special adjectives" [false twice!]; "predicate" as a synonym for "verb"; the subject of a sentence is what it's about; etc. And not-strictly-false-but-grammatically-useless things such as the distinction between "action verbs" and "linking verbs" [by which they mean the verb "to be"]; "subject complements make our idea of the subject more complete"; etc.

 

(Again, if those are all fine with you, I'm not about to argue.)

 

What I want is a grammar curriculum that isn't based on an explanation of grammar based on facts about meaning, but based on facts about grammatical structure. Example: Instead of "a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea" (traditional grammar, based on meaning), something like "a noun is a word that can have a plural form, usually by the signal -s." In this example, you would want to go on later to talk about mass nouns; but there's a difference between starting simplistically in discussing grammar and just flatly asserting false/misleading things.

[Violet Crown]

What about using something like The Language Files and rewording things on your own?

That's probably what I'm going to end up doing. I'd just vaguely hoped that some enterprising linguist, instead of complaining about the continued teaching of traditional grammar in K-12, would already have done that work for me.:D

[Violet Crown]

First time trying that multi-quote thing; this is what I get for posting a big question and then going out for the evening.

 

Wouldn't structural grammar, as devised by linguists, apply primarily to spoken language, not written?

No, it applies to both. Linguists don't usually draw a line between the two.

 

You might look at Grammar Made Easy.

 

http://www.everyday-education.com/grammar/faq.shtml

 

I don't know much about it but it sounds like what you are looking for.

Thanks, and thanks to others for grammar program suggestions; but they're not quite what I had in mind. I'm afraid I'm doing a rather poor job of describing what I'm looking for.

 

Here's another try at an example. MCT (and everyone else) says a subject must be a noun or a pronoun. My Dream Grammar Curriculum would say, at the first pass-through, "A simple subject is usually a noun or a pronoun. The cat sits on the bed. He can't help himself."

 

At the next pass-through in discussing subjects, it would say "A simple subject is usually a noun or a pronoun. But often a subject is instead a kind of 'placeholder' word--"it" or "there."* It is windy today. There's no business like show business. We can see that these are not pronouns because they have no antecedent. They hold the place of a subject in sentences that don't really have a subject."

 

"Sometimes an entire clause can be a subject. That Medea killed her children upset Jason."

 

As I said above, I don't object to starting off with a claim that's not the whole story (about subjects, for instance). So long as the whole story is told eventually.

 

 

*These are called "expletives," but people tend to misunderstand what those are.

Edited December 8, 2010 by Sharon in Austin

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

I really, really tremble in fear before posting this, because I may bring down the wrath on my head, but....

 

have you looked at Rod and Staff English?

 

For the younger levels, the TM points out the further truth about various teachings, and lets you know that it will be covered in later years. (My advanced kiddos learn it right then.) Nothing is over-simplified or watered down in a way that can be misleading, and the info is there for you to expand upon if you like.

 

As far as your second example, about defining nouns not just as 'person, place, idea,' but including information about how most nouns are pluralized simply with -s:

 

I'm teaching R&S grade 5 right now, and we recently covered that very thing.

 

Really, I'm very impressed with R&S from grade 5 up. (We own the younger grades, but I think those are not as interesting. I have found that my kids can handle grade 5 by age 9 or 10.)

 

Edited to add: I just read your wikipedia link about syntax. Now I think you'd like Harvey's. My oldest son studied Harvey's grammar (along with McGuffey Readers) and is my best grammar student. He believes that Harvey's prepared him for his great success in Logic and Algebra as well as composition.

[Crimson Wife]

What I want is a grammar curriculum that isn't based on an explanation of grammar based on facts about meaning, but based on facts about grammatical structure. Example: Instead of "a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea" (traditional grammar, based on meaning), something like "a noun is a word that can have a plural form, usually by the signal -s." In this example, you would want to go on later to talk about mass nouns; but there's a difference between starting simplistically in discussing grammar and just flatly asserting false/misleading things.

 

Okay, now I see what you're getting at. However, I have to say that this is a fairly sophisticated approach more suitable to the university level (or possibly bright high schoolers) than elementary school (remember that MCT's "island" level is aimed at 3rd graders). Defining a noun as "person, place, thing, or idea" is much easier for a young child to grasp than "a word that can have a plural form". Is it a bit simplistic? Sure. But remember you're dealing with grammar stage kids who lack the kind of sophisticated reasoning ability that we adults take for granted.

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

Okay, now I see what you're getting at. However, I have to say that this is a fairly sophisticated approach more suitable to the university level (or possibly bright high schoolers) than elementary school (remember that MCT's "island" level is aimed at 3rd graders). Defining a noun as "person, place, thing, or idea" is much easier for a young child to grasp than "a word that can have a plural form". Is it a bit simplistic? Sure. But remember you're dealing with grammar stage kids who lack the kind of sophisticated reasoning ability that we adults take for granted.

 

Hrm. My younger children are learning better with R&S Grade 5 than with the levels written for their grades. I am convinced the success comes from the fact that R&S Grade 5 explains things thoroughly instead of saving trickier layers for later.

 

I think when they see all the layers, it makes more sense. At least for my kids.

 

"A word that can have a plural form" isn't all that sophisticated, is it? If they know even the 8 parts of speech taught in Schoolhouse Rock, they can easily grasp the fact that an adjective doesn't have a plural form, and a verb is a single action or state of being, and a conjunction is not more than one...

 

edited to add: I'm not sure I should be in this conversation. I don't have experience teaching English to any children other than my own, and my 6yo and 10yo are very happily studying R&S Grade 5 along with my 12yo. The younger two might be atypical.

[Corraleno]

What about Thinking Through Grammar? Amazon carries the books as well.

 

Jackie

[StephanieZ]

FWIW, I have already seen a lot of the 'explaining eventually' of nuances after earlier making a simpler general assertion both within MCT levels and especially as the levels progress. . .

 

I would imagine that many, if not most, grammar programs would teach this way.

 

MCT himself has explained that idea in his posts on the yahoo group. MCT's posts on the yahoo group were the first time I'd been exposed to the concept that grammar was actually a living art as much as a science. . .

 

Sort of like in science. . . We teach Newtonian mechanics before teaching Einstein's relativity. . . and we don't get around to teaching that, 'oh, by the way, F=ma is not actually the whole story' until the kids are in an advanced physics class in college.

 

Or, the convolutions in advanced math. . . oh my, it is just start making my head spin.

 

So, anyhow, this isn't a debate about MCT per se, but more of a general point about the usefulness of simplistic generalizations in elementary teaching. I think generalizations can be useful, even though they are usually not universally true. That's the whole point . . . they are 'generally' true, not always true.

[Crimson Wife]

"A word that can have a plural form" isn't all that sophisticated, is it? If they know even the 8 parts of speech taught in Schoolhouse Rock, they can easily grasp the fact that an adjective doesn't have a plural form, and a verb is a single action or state of being, and a conjunction is not more than one...

 

It's an abstract idea and not as easy-to-grasp for young kids who tend to be pretty concrete thinkers. My DS at age 4 last year picked up the meaning-based definitions of a noun & a verb simply by listening in to his big sister doing MCT. Similarly, he understood the idea of a subject as "who or what the sentence is about". The nuances Sharon discussed are fine for adults to worry about, but young kids do better with the simplified explanations.

[Crimson Wife]

FWIW, I have already seen a lot of the 'explaining eventually' of nuances after earlier making a simpler general assertion both within MCT levels and especially as the levels progress. . .

 

I would imagine that many, if not most, grammar programs would teach this way.

 

MCT himself has explained that idea in his posts on the yahoo group. MCT's posts on the yahoo group were the first time I'd been exposed to the concept that grammar was actually a living art as much as a science. . .

 

Sort of like in science. . . We teach Newtonian mechanics before teaching Einstein's relativity. . . and we don't get around to teaching that, 'oh, by the way, F=ma is not actually the whole story' until the kids are in an advanced physics class in college.

 

Or, the convolutions in advanced math. . . oh my, it is just start making my head spin.

 

So, anyhow, this isn't a debate about MCT per se, but more of a general point about the usefulness of simplistic generalizations in elementary teaching. I think generalizations can be useful, even though they are usually not universally true. That's the whole point . . . they are 'generally' true, not always true.

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

This is why I don't think you're going to find an elementary grammar program that takes a "structural" approach.

[katilac]

Here's another try at an example. MCT (and everyone else) says a subject must be a noun or a pronoun. My Dream Grammar Curriculum would say, at the first pass-through, "A simple subject is usually a noun or a pronoun. The cat sits on the bed. He can't help himself."

 

At the next pass-through in discussing subjects, it would say "A simple subject is usually a noun or a pronoun. But often a subject is instead a kind of 'placeholder' word--"it" or "there."* It is windy today. There's no business like show business. We can see that these are not pronouns because they have no antecedent. They hold the place of a subject in sentences that don't really have a subject."

 

"Sometimes an entire clause can be a subject. That Medea killed her children upset Jason."

 

As I said above, I don't object to starting off with a claim that's not the whole story (about subjects, for instance). So long as the whole story is told eventually.

 

 

Okay, these examples make sense to me, but the first example in your prior post does not (a noun is a word that can have a plural form), because I don't see how that's true when you get to gerunds or clauses as subjects. I don't see the difference between saying that, and saying that a noun is a person, place, or thing?? Or that the subject is what a sentence is about? How would structural grammar define the subject?

 

Interesting. I'll have to ponder the nuances when I'm a bit more awake.

Edited December 8, 2010 by katilac

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

It's an abstract idea and not as easy-to-grasp for young kids who tend to be pretty concrete thinkers. My DS at age 4 last year picked up the meaning-based definitions of a noun & a verb simply by listening in to his big sister doing MCT. Similarly, he understood the idea of a subject as "who or what the sentence is about". The nuances Sharon discussed are fine for adults to worry about, but young kids do better with the simplified explanations.

 

As I said, I've never taught children other than my own, but these statements have not been truths for them.

[sagira]

Gives me lots to think about.. I'm going to order Sentence Composing for Elementary School and it seems akin to what the OP is talking about. Thanks for posting. I haven't given too much thought to the definitions. I wonder if using two traditional programs (which I think Voyages in English is, as well as Primary Language Lessons) with this structural writing approach would work to shake things up. I would definitely explain the various ways instead of just saying place, person, or thing. I was taught this traditional way in school, though, and our school system is one of the highest ranked in the world, especially for language instruction. For example, I started learning English in sixth grade, and consider myself fairly adept at writing sentences (native speakers and writers may disagree, naturally).

[Corraleno]

"A word that can have a plural form" isn't all that sophisticated, is it? If they know even the 8 parts of speech taught in Schoolhouse Rock, they can easily grasp the fact that an adjective doesn't have a plural form, and a verb is a single action or state of being, and a conjunction is not more than one...

But Grammar Island is the very first book in the MCT program — kids starting with Grammar Island wouldn't know the other 8 parts of speech yet. They're learning about nouns first, so defining a noun as a word that can be pluralized is pretty abstract for kids who (1) probably don't know what "pluralized" means, and (2) don't know there are other parts of speech which aren't pluralized. And if you define plural as "a word that ends in s," a child might think that gross, sees, and omnivorous are nouns, but children and mice aren't. My 8 yo (who is not an abstract thinker) had a hard enough time with the concept that a noun could be a person, place, thing, or idea; the concept that "a noun is a word that can be pluralized" would have been totally over her head at this age.

 

Jackie

Edited December 8, 2010 by Corraleno

[Crimson Wife]

What about Thinking Through Grammar? Amazon carries the books as well.

 

Jackie

 

I have Thinking Through Grammar and it doesn't have the kind of "structural" definitions that it sounds like Sharon wants. For example, I looked in chapter 1 and found the following definitions:

 

The word that names the action is called a verb.

 

The word that names the thing that performs the action is called the subject.

 

The word that names the thing which receives the action is called the object.

 

And in chapter 15 on nouns, I find the following definition:

 

Nouns are the type of words that represent things, including persons, places, and objects.

 

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

But Grammar Island is the very first book in the MCT program — kids starting with Grammar Island wouldn't know the other 8 parts of speech yet. They're learning about nouns first, so defining a noun as a word that can be pluralized is pretty abstract for kids who (1) probably don't know what "pluralized" means, and (2) don't know there are other parts of speech which aren't pluralized. And if you define plural as "a word that ends in s," a child might think that gross, sees, and omnivorous are nouns, but children and mice aren't. My 8 yo (who is not an abstract thinker) had a hard enough time with the concept that a noun could be a person, place, thing, or idea; the concept that "a noun is a word that can be pluralized" would have been totally over her head at this age.

 

Jackie

 

I'm sorry! :chillpill:

 

I guess my kids are more advanced in this one particular area than I knew, and my experience is so far out of the norm that I should not have offered my opinion or experience to Sharon? I didn't know that.

 

I'm not going to beat a dead horse, here. If it is universally acknowledged that little kids can't learn beyond "a noun is a person, place, or thing," then who am I to argue?

[justamouse]

i love this thread. just say'n

[Momling]

We're using MCT too and I share your frustration. The author's lack of knowledge about syntax shows up in Grammar Island as much as his lack of knowledge about phonetics and phonology in Music of the Hemispheres.

 

In my experience, few educators know anything about linguistics... and frankly, few linguists care about education (especially elementary education). The writers of books about language for kids seem to come from a dated grammarian perspective. The most accessible books dealing with linguistics are probably written for a freshman audience.

 

I've gotten around the problem by teaching how to do basic syntax trees (rather than old-fashioned diagramming) to my older daughter... and by getting out an IPA chart and showing all the possible sounds of language and how we classify and talk about them and pointing out how language changes or why we pronounce things in a certain way or how our choice of words affects meaning. Eventually I can imagine getting a little optimality theory or formal logic in... But I don't think that there is a linguistics book for kids out there. Unless maybe we set about writing one? :tongue_smilie:

[justamouse]

 

I've gotten around the problem by teaching how to do basic syntax trees (rather than old-fashioned diagramming) to my older daughter... and by getting out an IPA chart and showing all the possible sounds of language and how we classify and talk about them and pointing out how language changes or why we pronounce things in a certain way or how our choice of words affects meaning. Eventually I can imagine getting a little optimality theory or formal logic in... But I don't think that there is a linguistics book for kids out there. Unless maybe we set about writing one? :tongue_smilie:

can you get it done by next term? :D

[treestarfae]

can you get it done by next term? :D

I need it now! How much?

[katilac]

I'm sorry! :chillpill:

 

I guess my kids are more advanced in this one particular area than I knew, and my experience is so far out of the norm that I should not have offered my opinion or experience to Sharon? I didn't know that.

 

I'm not going to beat a dead horse, here. If it is universally acknowledged that little kids can't learn beyond "a noun is a person, place, or thing," then who am I to argue?

 

I'm not certain why you took offense at her post? I read it as simply giving her opinion in an interesting conversation, without a harsh word or bit of sarcasm in sight.

 

Just in case you gave your last one away, ;), here, have on of mine:

:chillpill:

[Corraleno]

I'm sorry! :chillpill:

 

I guess my kids are more advanced in this one particular area than I knew, and my experience is so far out of the norm that I should not have offered my opinion or experience to Sharon? I didn't know that.

 

I'm not going to beat a dead horse, here. If it is universally acknowledged that little kids can't learn beyond "a noun is a person, place, or thing," then who am I to argue?

Why do I need to :chillpill:? :confused:

 

I wasn't attacking you at all, or suggesting that no child can learn more than person/place/thing. I was just expressing that (1) many kids who do Grammar Island wouldn't already know the 8 parts of speech, and (2) defining a noun as "a word that can be plural" would have been over the head of my 3rd grader. No one has suggested that you shouldn't have offered your opinion or your experience with your own kids; a couple of us just disagreed, based on our experience with our kids. That's all.

 

Jackie

[katilac]

]"A word that can have a plural form" isn't all that sophisticated' date=' is it? [/b']If they know even the 8 parts of speech taught in Schoolhouse Rock, they can easily grasp the fact that an adjective doesn't have a plural form, and a verb is a single action or state of being, and a conjunction is not more than one...

 

 

I can see it being rather confusing, particularly for the literal-minded. He jumps over the log versus how many ski jumps we did today. But me no buts requires recognizing the word as a conjunction and a noun. Lovely as an adjective versus lovelies as a noun. Leaving aside the pluralization rule, there are just so many English words that can serve as multiple parts of speech. The pretty girl, versus I'll get you, my pretty, and so on. To me, it seems easier for a child who is taught grammar based on meaning to make those distinctions.

 

What is the Rod and Staff definition of a noun?

[anabelneri]

You might look at KISS grammar http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/KISS.htm

It's free and online, with multiple grade levels offered, starting with 2nd grade.

 

The website is a little confusing, but it might be well worth it because it seems to at least do what you want in terms of subjects. From the Introduction page:

 

Perhaps the best way to describe the KISS Approach is to compare it to a war game. (I know, some people do not like war and war games, but the comparison makes sense.) The objective is to be able to look at any text and to be able to identify, explain, and intelligently discuss how any word in any sentence functions within that sentence. Perhaps if we consider two sentences, the problems involved will be clearer:

 

1. She took off her sash, and tied one end round the butterfly.

 

 

 

2. He took down his soft crush hat after he had dressed himself, a new glint of interest and determination in his eye, and taking his black crook cane from behind the door, where he had always placed it, started out briskly to look for her among the nearest neighbors.

Identifying the subjects, verbs, and prepositional phrases in the first sentence is relatively easy. (It is comparable to the sentences that you will find in many grammar textbooks.) The second sentence, from Dreiser's wonderful story "The Lost Phoebe," will give many people serious problems. You will probably never find comparable sentences in the exercises in most grammar textbooks. In essence, the second sentence includes what we might call "advanced constructions" that will simply confuse the beginning student.

The KISS strategy is to enable students to master the basic, and most frequently used constructions first. In KISS, "mastery" means something much different than it does in most grammar textbooks. The textbooks give definitions of things like "subject" and "verb," but they never even try to teach students how to identify subjects and verbs in their own writing. In KISS, "mastery" means that the students will always be identifying the subjects and verbs in any passage that they analyze. Once students have mastered basic constructions, they can "mop up," in the military phrase, expanding their analytical abilities to reach the final objective. If you try to use sentences like the second one with beginning students, you will probably confuse and frustrate them. KISS is therefore structured around six "levels" (explained below).

 

I'm not a linguist, but to my untrained mind this seemed to reflect what you were asking for.

?

Anabel

[Violet Crown]

All y'all* must live on the west coast--I just woke up and there's another three pages of discussion! Let me respond to a couple of things generally.

 

 

I may have been misleading in talking about the need to start simple and get complex later. Of course all elementary education is going to do this to some degree. But MCT/traditional grammar is teaching things at the beginner level that are simply wrong, which is different.

 

 

The flip side of this is the objection that studying syntax is only for the advanced student. Of course it's a complex subject; language is complex. But I've seen all sorts of curriculum that tackles necessarily complex subjects in a way accessible even to the very young. I was just reading Nebel's BFSU and its sequel last night and being impressed by his discussions of inertia fit for a first-grader. He's especially good at supplying teacher's notes explaining how he's simplifying matters.

 

 

The noun issue is a good example. I've had no difficulty at all teaching very young children that you can spot a noun because it pluralizes, usually with the signal -s.** Of course I don't use those words. But if you're looking at the sentence "There's another three pages of discussion," you can easily work through it with a young child, asking "Can there be more than one of this?" They quickly pick out page/pages, discussion/discussions, and discard the rest as silly: three/threes, of/ofs, another/anothers. There's looks like it could be a plural, but if you ask "Is there one there, and several there's?" they see it isn't.

 

 

The point is that traditional grammar makes you learn lots of rules that aren't true or aren't helpful, while studying syntax uses what the child already knows because he is a native speaker of English.

 

 

Momling, thanks for chiming in. Unfortunately I have just enough education to know that Grammar Island is wrong in all sorts of ways (I skip bits in MOH; it's still more useful for us than my previous attempt to rework Sound and Sense for elementary students) but not enough to construct my own grammar education.To use my earlier analogy, it's like knowing the references in an anatomy text to "bilious humours" are wrong but not knowing quite enough anatomy to replace it with an accurate explanation. Thus my search.

 

ETA: Again, thanks to the many helpful posters for the links and curriculum suggestions. I am checking them all out.

 

---------------------

*How's that for a second person plural pronoun?

**There's other things to be said about nouns, but this is usually, IME, enough to allow a small child to pick them out confidently.

Edited December 8, 2010 by Sharon in Austin

[Mommyfaithe]

i love this thread. just say'n

 

:lol::lol:

yeah...me too.

[HRAAB]

I'm sorry! :chillpill:

 

I guess my kids are more advanced in this one particular area than I knew, and my experience is so far out of the norm that I should not have offered my opinion or experience to Sharon? I didn't know that.

 

I'm not going to beat a dead horse, here. If it is universally acknowledged that little kids can't learn beyond "a noun is a person, place, or thing," then who am I to argue?

 

This caught my eye. I start teaching my children the parts of speech in 2nd grade and finish up in 3rd. When I teach nouns, I tell them a noun can be made plural. This helps them locate the nouns in their copywork. I never thought of this as part of the definition of a noun but rather one of its attributes: number. Maybe I don't even use the word 'plural' at first but ask 'can you make it more than one' or something like that.

[Violet Crown]

Okay, these examples make sense to me, but the first example in your prior post does not (a noun is a word that can have a plural form), because I don't see how that's true when you get to gerunds or clauses as subjects. I don't see the difference between saying that, and saying that a noun is a person, place, or thing?? Or that the subject is what a sentence is about? How would structural grammar define the subject?

 

Interesting. I'll have to ponder the nuances when I'm a bit more awake.

Here, I'll break it down and see if it makes it more intelligible (I've just had my own coffee :)).

 

1. A noun is a word that can have a plural form.

2. Gerunds, clauses, and 'placeholders' (it, there) can be subjects.

3. Gerunds, clauses, and 'placeholders' (it, there) are not nouns.

4. Gerunds, clauses, and 'placeholders' (it, there) don't have plural forms.

 

Defining a subject is a challenge, again because it's a lot more complex than "it's what the sentence is about." My own approach is to start with the highly simplified, but very accessible to young children, rule that "The subject is (usually) at the beginning of the sentence." Now obviously that's got a zillion exceptions, but it's built on the basic structure of English sentences. Take these sentences:

 

1. The debutante curtsied prettily.

2. Discussing syntax can present challenges.

3. There is a gargoyle outside the window.

4. The cat was chased by the dog.

 

A child who is looking for "person, place, thing, idea" is going to struggle to figure out the subject in 2 and 3. A child who has learned that "the subject is the thing acting on the object" is going to be confused by 4. Anyone looking for "what the sentence is about" may be confused by any of them (Is 2 about challenges? Is 4 about chasing? And surely 3 is not about There--what would that even mean?).

 

But a child who knows that "the subject is at the beginning" will correctly identify (again, in my experience) the subjects.

 

Now of course you're going to have to move on to identifying prepositional phrases and adverbs (for instance) that have floated up to the beginning of the sentence. But by the time you're dealing with those, the child has already grasped the basic subject + predicate structure of the sentence, and isn't going to be put off by those. Again, this isn't theoretical; I've already done this with two children.

 

P.S. Momling, feel free to chime in anywhere with corrections or better explanations. My knowledge of syntax is so, so basic. Can I hire you as a tutor?:D

[forty-two]

Fascinating :). I've a college freshman English grammar text that teaches structural grammar that I really like that isn't too difficult - I've been planning on simplifying it and teaching it to my dc, though that's just in the planning stages :tongue_smilie:. Anyway, it's Understanding English Grammar, by Martha Kolln & Robert Funk. There are a zillion editions; I've the sixth, b/c it was the cheapest recent one I found on Amazon ;) (the current edition prices are outrageous).

[Violet Crown]

Fascinating :). I've a college freshman English grammar text that teaches structural grammar that I really like that isn't too difficult - I've been planning on simplifying it and teaching it to my dc, though that's just in the planning stages :tongue_smilie:. Anyway, it's Understanding English Grammar, by Martha Kolln & Robert Funk. There are a zillion editions; I've the sixth, b/c it was the cheapest recent one I found on Amazon ;) (the current edition prices are outrageous).

Just looked at it on Amazon. The negative reviews, especially, convinced me that I need to get this and adapt it somehow. Thanks!