Help with LA for 6th grader!!

[Murrayshire]

I'm going to use Sonlight Core 5 with my 6th grader in the fall......I'm trying to decide whether to use SL LA 5 or just use something different for spelling, grammar, & writing.

Has anyone used Grammar Ace with success? Shurley English 6? Winston Grammer Basic? She is in public school right now and says she is not learning any grammar and lacking writing. So, with that being said, I'm not sure about where she is with her grammar skills. Should I just try something basic.....I don't want her to be behind....She is strong with her writing and spelling(she won the spelling bee in her school this year and then went on to placing top 5 in the district Bee!!).

But she has expressed to me that they have not been doing any grammar this year. They focus mainly on math and science.

Any help would be great!

Thank you,

Jana Murray:001_smile:

[mom@shiloh]

My SL LA 5 is from 2006 and I know they updated it after that, but the 2006 version is very heavy into grammar imo. I checked the on-line samples of the updated version and it seemed like alot of grammar there as well. I think that if your daughter hasn't had much grammar yet it might be hard to jump into that.

 

I have a Grammar Ace instructor's manual and have recently ordered the student books because my boys just don't seem to be retaining their grammar (11 and 12 yo). Grammar Ace looks like fun. They have many suggestions for grammar games to play such as "I Spy" with nouns and "Going to Grandma's" nouns. As in... "I went to Grandma's and I took along an apple." "I went to Grandma's and I took along a bear." and on through the letters of the alphabet.

 

That makes it sound a bit juvenile, and I do think that some of the games could be played even by my 6 yo, but there are more challenging games as well.

 

I also ordered a Schoolhouse Rock grammar DVD to go with it. This is suggested and there are several times in the instructor's guide where they tell you to watch something on the DVD. (Or you can pick up the VHS pretty cheaply.):party:(My 7 yo picked the smiley!)

 

I've looked at tons of grammar programs (ok, maybe not tons) and decided to go with this because we were burned out and needed something fun that I also thought would get the job done.

 

Others of my children have done very well with Easy Grammar, and I really liked that. I also thought that Winston Grammar looked good for kids who like hands-on learning. We may go to one of those after this (none of these programs use diagramming, btw).

 

I look at Grammar Ace as more of a remedial program to get us back on track and have some fun. I also think that we can do most of it together (kids from K-6) to give younger kids a good introduction.

 

hth,

Jean

[Chris in VA]

I'm planning for 6th, too, with a dd who has hs'd for K-2 and 4th. She's in ps now in 5th, and I know what you mean about no grammar!

 

I took a look yesterday at Rod and Staff 5, and I think we are going with that, with a little Easy Grammar thrown in there. She doesn't like R&S, but I think the scope and sequence look just right for her, and I won't have to supplement the writing. They go thru parts of speech, clauses, sentences, and so on. If it looks a little easy, try grade 6. I know we can fly thru some of it, as R&S spirals thru the years, but I want dd to know the names of the different words (like "appositives"--:001_smile:). We can do a lot of it orally, which means grammar takes about 20-30 minutes, and that's not bad at all, ime.