Any Rod & Staff Dissenters? What do you NOT LOVE about R&S?

[lovelaughs_times_three]

Ok, ok, I'm almost convinced to throw out all the grammar plans I had, and give Rod & Staff a try. I started the thread about what you LOVE about Rod & Staff and I got some pretty convincing reasons! So, before I jump, I realized....the people who respond to that post will be the ones who it is working for. I thought, maybe there are dissenters out there who are brave enough to talk to me! So here's your chance for dissension!!! What do you dislike about the program! Warn me now! I'm about to make the leap!!!! ;):lol:;)

[Miss Marple]

I think it's a fine grammar program. If it floats your boat, go for it. I would rather cut the grass with scissors than use it again. Frankly I found it to be one of the most boring, uninspiring programs out there. But that's me - I love variety, and beautiful surroundings are important to my state of mind. This program had neither. The text is (or was when we used it) straight black and white with no variation in the typeset. It didn't scream "read me!". The content is excellent, though. So my only beef with the product is the packaging so to speak. And I will admit that I haven't even looked at a Rod and Staff book for several years so maybe they have changed the "packaging".

[tomandlorih]

:bigear: I'm almost convinced too! I hope you get responses to this thread. The only reason I have been holding back is that it seems to be overwhelmingly religious. Not that I have a problem with that as we are are quite conservative but only in that I am thinking that diagramming Scripture would be much harder than See Spot run. Looking forward to what the Hive has to say. Lori

 

Ok, ok, I'm almost convinced to throw out all the grammar plans I had, and give Rod & Staff a try. I started the thread about what you LOVE about Rod & Staff and I got some pretty convincing reasons! So, before I jump, I realized....the people who respond to that post will be the ones who it is working for. I thought, maybe there are dissenters out there who are brave enough to talk to me! So here's your chance for dissension!!! What do you dislike about the program! Warn me now! I'm about to make the leap!!!! ;):lol:;)

[frankcassiesmom]

I love it BUT my 10yo DD did not. My oldest uses it without a single problem. But my daughter wanted to cry every time we brought it out. She uses CLE now and thrives on it. I do think it's a great grammar program. It's rigorous and incremental and works great UNLESS your child isn't one at 9yo to be rewriting long pages of dry lessons. My daughter just hated it.

Edited June 4, 2011 by frankcassiesmom

[Virg]

:bigear: I want to hear too! I looked at it and thought it looked too plain and boring to keep the twins' attention but maybe I was wrong. I keep reading good things about it.

[Carol in Cal.]

My DD found the grammar material somewhat difficult, and we had to do it a year behind. However, other than that I really liked it.

 

When she was in 7th grade I decided to switch to something easier, and she objected! I couldn't believe it, but she had learned to like it.

 

The black and white format makes the books very economical, and also DD finds it less distracting than colorful texts (Saxon is good for that reason as well.) Not everyone likes that, though.

[boscopup]

:bigear: I'm almost convinced too! I hope you get responses to this thread. The only reason I have been holding back is that it seems to be overwhelmingly religious. Not that I have a problem with that as we are are quite conservative but only in that I am thinking that diagramming Scripture would be much harder than See Spot run. Looking forward to what the Hive has to say. Lori

 

There's a good mix of non-religious and religious sentences (and they aren't straight from the Bible - they're usually sentences about Bible stories, like "Jesus walked on water.", find the noun and the verb... that type of thing). There are many non-religious sentences used as well. For example, the section in R&S 2 about paragraphs discusses whales, polar bears, and I think there's one about zoo animals. They have a lot of nature in there.

 

I did find R&S 2, the early units, to be a little too much sounding like you were sinning if you didn't use a complete sentence. I found that some verses were being used out of context to support this ("Do all things decently and in order." to support writing good, orderly sentences, when that verse is specifically talking about the assembly of the church). The later units aren't so bad about that, and looking through grades 3 and 4, I haven't seen that much, if at all. It is certainly religious, of course.

 

Oh, a funny my son said last week about the R&S 2 book... "The writers of this book may have been Christian!" :lol: Thank you, Captain Obvious. :D

 

Take a look at the samples on http://rodandstaffbooks.com (I've never ordered from them - I always order straight from the publisher, as shipping is a bit cheaper, but I do peruse the samples on this website often!). They'll give you a good idea of the nature of the exercises.

[Nikki -TX-]

..I'm almost convinced to throw out all the grammar plans I had, and give Rod & Staff a try. I started the thread about what you LOVE about Rod & Staff and I got some pretty convincing reasons!

 

Me too! Your previous post about it got me thinking too. Just used English for the Thoughtful Child here. FLL was way too much. I don't like textbooks either!

[simka2]

:bigear: I want to hear too! I looked at it and thought it looked too plain and boring to keep the twins' attention but maybe I was wrong. I keep reading good things about it.

 

I wanted to take moment to address this. Forgive my typing I am at a conference:D. I have twin boys one of whom has adhd. I have found that he needs non distracting materials to retain information. If he is distracted by colors, pics, or topics that jump around he cannot internalize what he is learning. Plus, much of rs can be done orally. I do reinforce with games.

[Carol in Cal.]

I guess that doing it a year behind meant that I had to use other resources for writing, in addition to RS, but it was a solid writing program that taught the terms and bare bones of writing extremely well in a way that was easy to convey, so I still used it, but just not alone. That could be considered a drawback, but I thought it was fine, really.

 

I'm having to hunt for problems with it. It's such a good, solid program.

[Spock]

Ok, ok, I'm almost convinced to throw out all the grammar plans I had, and give Rod & Staff a try. I started the thread about what you LOVE about Rod & Staff and I got some pretty convincing reasons! So, before I jump, I realized....the people who respond to that post will be the ones who it is working for. I thought, maybe there are dissenters out there who are brave enough to talk to me! So here's your chance for dissension!!! What do you dislike about the program! Warn me now! I'm about to make the leap!!!! ;):lol:;)

 

I do use R&S. However, I dislike English 2 & 3, which have a different format than the other books. I have never finished book 3 with any of my children, and I only finished book 2 with one child--the only one who was able to complete it independently.

 

My children have also complained that it is boring. (One son grumbled "All those people talk about is doing chores and going to church.") Sometimes, for variety, I use their lesson but make up my own sentences about other topics.

 

However, I have never found anything else that covers the same material to the same depth and as clearly. So, we use it as our primary grammar/writing program. (I do use some MCT for a fun, different way of looking at things. My younger kids love MCT, but they don't learn as much as with R&S, so I will just be using a few books as supplements now and then.)

[G5052]

I used Rod and Staff Phonics/Reading 1 and 2 to teach my children to read, and I loved it. It is not a pure phonics program (some sight words) and involved more writing than some like, but we just took it bit-by-bit and it worked well for us.

 

So it made perfect sense to use their grammar. We lasted all of a month. I just wasn't sinking in and the format didn't work for us. So we went to Shurley English and then Classical Conversation's Essentials, and I never looked back. I much prefer the way that those two programs teach grammar.

[Julie in Austin]

After using it 3rd-7th, I'm going to try CLE next year because my feeling is that R&S is over-emphasizing grammatical terms and distinctions at this level while under-emphasizing correct usage, at least for our needs.

[cin]

I love R&S Grammar, but my oldest has some fine motor issues so we are switching this year to CLE, which is workbook based, so she doesn't have as much writing to do. I love R&S so much, that I had last year's book de-spined and copied it for her :001_smile:

 

If CLE doens't work out, we'll go back to R&S.

 

As an aside that only my fellow boardies would understand... I love R&S so much that when the box of CLE grammar came, I didn't even open it right away.

[lovelaughs_times_three]

We lasted all of a month. I just wasn't sinking in and the format didn't work for us. So we went to Shurley English and then Classical Conversation's Essentials, and I never looked back. I much prefer the way that those two programs teach grammar.

 

Can you tell me more specifically what wasn't working?

[lovelaughs_times_three]

It's funny! I started this thread to find out what the negatives of this program are, and so far I'm still getting more positive than negative reviews!! :)

Where are you other dissenters? I know you're out there somewhere!! ;)

[cin]

It's funny! I started this thread to find out what the negatives of this program are, and so far I'm still getting more positive than negative reviews!! :)

Where are you other dissenters? I know you're out there somewhere!! ;)

 

We didn't like all the writing :D But you can get around it by doing stuff orally.

[lovelaughs_times_three]

What kind of writing is it? Copywork? Creative writing?

[TracyP]

It's funny! I started this thread to find out what the negatives of this program are, and so far I'm still getting more positive than negative reviews!! :)

Where are you other dissenters? I know you're out there somewhere!! ;)

 

 

I started R&S 3 but put it away because I found it boring. I don't think you will find anybody complaining that it doesn't cover enough...it seems incredibly thorough. My feeling was just that I couldn't imagine using this year, after year, after year. My *plan* is to have fun with grammar (I know, some may find this in R&S, some don't care if its fun, JMO) through things like Sentence Family and MCT then start R&S around 5th grade. I do think it looks like a good program, I just suspect I would be way burnt out on it if I started now. Of course, your kids are older so this doesn't really apply to you. Maybe it is more a positive than a negative when I look at it that way. :tongue_smilie: Hmm, you do seem to have people struggling to find negatives.

[Guest]

We DETEST R&S!!!! Hate, hate, hate it! (how is that for dissenting?) We have tried using it 3 or 4 times. We hate the overly religiousness of it. We hate the boring black and white. We hate the ridiculous writing lessons that left us going "Huh?" We hate that it is BORING, boring, boring dryness. Learning does not need to be drudgery. We hate the copying of all the sentences. Yes, you can do it orally but grammar is a WRITTEN discipline. Mine did not retain with just orally. We really hated the stupid diagramming. We hated the self-righteous and intolerance content of many of the sentences.

 

While it is true few other programs cover grammar as throughly, there ARE other choices.

 

The one program we have found tolerable is Saxon/Hake Grammar and Writing. Covers all that R&S does but without all the negatives for us. Mine write in the text. No complaining, grammar and writing get done.

 

Grammar does NOT need to be taught to kids below Logic age. Very few are developmentally ready to understand and RETAIN the abstractness of grammar below about 10 yrs old. Cover the basic parts of speech in Grammar stage with SchoolHouse Rock songs or Winston Grammar Basic, then hit it full on with Saxon/Hake starting in 5th.

 

If you feel you absolutely MUST have grammar for littles but cannot stand FLL (we can't, either) take a peek at Growing with Grammar. You will need another writing program but WWE fills that place nicely.

Edited June 4, 2011 by Guest

[Mommy22alyns]

I used part of 2 with Becca and have 3 for the fall.

 

The 2 main drawbacks I can think of are that it's pretty dry and undoubtedly religious. And I can see preferring CLE because of R&S not being consumable (lots of writing).

 

We'll see how things go with it.

[lovelaughs_times_three]

We DETEST R&S!!!! Hate, hate, hate it! (how is that for dissenting?)

 

There you go!!!!!!! :lol::lol::lol:

I knew there had to be someone out there!!!!! :D

[lovelaughs_times_three]

We hate the ridiculous writing lessons that left us going "Huh?"

 

What kind of writing lessons? Copywork? Creative writing? Can you give me an example?

Thanks for your help! It always helps me to see the positive and negative reviews of something before I jump!

[Koerarmoca]

I just bought it and I do hope I like it. I plan to use level 3 for my 4th grader. I don't feel she is up to par with where a 4th grader should be grammar wise so I chose to go back a level. It does look boring however It's school work we have plenty of other fun curriculum that Grammar can be a bit boring IMO. I have other things like hands on English & Voyages in English that we can pull from too. I have never really just used one text for anything. So if I find something in R&S that I like better in the other books I will go with it.

 

I have rarely heard anyone say anything bad about R&S. I for one appreciate the Christian content.

[Jean in CA]

Well, I said tons on your other thread about how much I love R&S, but to not be one-sided I wanted to post here too.

 

I think the sentences, if used for moral instruction would drive many batty:lol:. So, I tend to read the sentences with my "spritual mind" shut off, if one can do that, and just treat the sentences as purely useful for grammatical instruction.

 

I never make any comments to my kids on the spritual instruction that is contained and they don't either. While much of the Biblical material is narrative, some of it can be taken as "preachy."

 

But, hey, I've used the curriculum so long that I don't even notice the Biblical references anymore... and that's half the exercises! Kind of like my salon worker friend, who claims she can't hear Enya playing in the background anymore...

Edited June 4, 2011 by Jean in CA

[Guest]

No copywork. Your kids will get plenty of that copying out the exercises. Some of the assignments were just plain dumb to us. For example, copy out this entire paragraph but leave out the sentence that doesn't belong. Like I am going to have them waste time on THAT!

 

Take a look at the samples at http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com for better examples. Perhaps someone who has the books can give a more informed answer. I sold all mine.

 

Oh, we tried 2nd-5th. Mine found the religious sentences and examples a HUGE distraction and lost the grammar for the 'preachiness'.

[boscopup]

Some of the assignments were just plain dumb to us. For example, copy out this entire paragraph but leave out the sentence that doesn't belong. Like I am going to have them waste time on THAT!

 

It's teaching them to write a paragraph with the sentences all focusing on one subject. Now of course, if your children don't need to do that exercise, you, as the teacher, can choose to skip it and move on. :) I had my son doing the paragraph exercises like that (we didn't do that one, but the ones before it we did) because it was teaching him paragraph structure. The nice thing is that it was age appropriate. He wasn't being asked to make up a paragraph. He was just being asked to copy sentences in the form of a paragraph. It was basically like copywork, but adding one step that they had to figure out themselves - how to format the paragraph.

 

I'm switching back from FLL to R&S because I want him doing more of this copying sentences as part of his grammar work. I don't want a fill in the blank workbook (though R&S has worksheets to go with most lessons, so many lessons you could just use the worksheets if you wanted to, and they're incredibly cheap - like $2 or $3 per grade level?).

 

In the lower levels, any creative writing is very little. In grade 2, it might be something like "Write a sentence describing yourself, using the word I". My son said "I am writing." :) In grade 3, towards the end, it has them write a paragraph about a picture, but it helps them out by asking some questions about the picture (what time is it, what are the people doing, that sort of thing). It doesn't have useless creative writing like "Imagine you are an astronaut and you meet up with a pig. Tell what happens." I think they might have them jot some notes about an animal and write a paragraph from that at the end of grade 3? Can't remember if it was 3 or 4.

 

There are a lot of exercises, but keep in mind that it's meant for schools. You are free to pick and choose from the exercises. You can do some orally or on a white board, or do them as written. You can do all of them or every other one or none at all (if your child has mastered the concept). I also finally realized that I don't have to read the student text verbatim. That helped a lot with the over-religious parts (though again, that's more in the early parts of grade 2 than the later grades, from what I've seen). I can just briefly go over the concept being taught, do some of the oral section, then assign maybe 3 of the exercises that involve copying sentences (which my son prefers to just plain old copywork where he doesn't feel like it has a purpose - he can see the purpose in this). I adjust the assignment to what he can handle, but I am finding that the more I have him do, the easier the physical act of writing becomes, hence why I'm wanting a grammar program where he has to write and copy exercises from a textbook. :)

 

Look at the samples and see if they excite you or bore you. The samples are pretty good. You can also call the company and ask them for samples of whatever grade level you're doing. Then you can see them in person. I believe they send samples for free. I don't know if the online site sends out samples or not. I have only purchased from the publisher themselves (they don't have a website).

 

R&S definitely isn't for everyone, and if you don't want a heavily Christian textbook, it's definitely not for you. My son likes the Bible stories interspersed in the exercises. They're very familiar to him. :)

[Whereneverever]

I couldn't stand the amount of religion in it. We are Christian but I don't agree with the Anabaptist theology and a lot of the examples irked me.

 

It also seemed like a lot of busy work.

[Bee]

It is very thorough. It is very dry. It is very, very, boring. It's not fun or the least bit amusing...ever. It was sheer drudgery and we dropped it after about 6 weeks. I know it's supposed to be academically challenging and will produce children who know everything there is to know about grammar. But it was a dismal failure at my house. That was 7th grade English.

 

I've tried it twice for math, once in grade 2, once in grade 7. Second grade math mostly covered addition and subtraction in depth all year. 3rd grade came and dd had forgotten nearly all of it. I suspect the problem was more on dd's end of things than the program itself but it doesn't speak well for that whole concept of "all they need to do is memorize the facts". I didn't like the 7th grade TM. It gave answers but didn't explain how they got the answers. There are other programs that are more user friendly. Older dd did say she prefered the math text over the english. It was a bit less dull to read.

[Whereneverever]

Also, I believe more in copywork, narration, and dictation for writing in the primary and grammar stages. R&S didn't have that. At all. It was copying fill in the blank sentences and it burned my DD out on writing because it was too much repetition. I wish we'd quit it quicker then we did!

[Finnella]

Although I like R&S, I agree with the comments about too much copying of sentences. When we hit assignments that expect my son to copy an entire sentence in order to add punctuation at the end or another small change, I copy the page and let him write on the copy. When it's helpful to write out the entire sentence, I frequently have my son do half the sentences.

 

I think if we tried to do every sentence in every lesson, my son and I would both go crazy.

[Mommy to monkeys]

I think it's a fine grammar program. If it floats your boat, go for it. I would rather cut the grass with scissors than use it again..

:rofl:

[mjbucks1]

We LOVE R&S, but I will agree that there are WAY TOO MANY exercises. That is why we do many of them orally, and only do some of them written (like diagramming). It is a dry program, but my kids and I have fun with it. My ds son about fell off his chair laughing this year when one of the sentences talked about a kid running through the house because he was so excited to mow the lawn.....LOL!! So I guess you could say that we have fun together doing this program, even though it can be BORING :D. We also don't agree with everything the book asserts (like organized sports are wrong :)), but we all have differences of opinion. My children have learned grammar VERY EASILY with this program (we start with book 4, after FLL). It has also helped greatly with their study of Latin.

 

Blessings,

Michelle

[chiguirre]

Dd and I actually like it, but it's not for everyone. The religious content is so over the top that it's become a running joke for us, but if you're religious that's probably not a good thing. We also do it orally, which works for us, but it's not the only grammar we use. I really like Climbing to Good English, which is also boring b&w, but in a workbook format with no religious content at all. It is an Amish book, so it's old fashioned, but it's worked for us so far. Actually, I think CTGE and R&S together make a very complete grammar/writing program.

 

I wouldn't use R&S if you'll feel obliged to have your child copy all the sentences to do the exercises, because it's just a phenomenal amount of busywork. If the all religion, all the time style bothers you, I'd look somewhere else because there are lots of good alternatives. I also agree that eventually R&S just becomes overkill and it's time to stop diagramming and start writing, but I think you'll know when you get to that point.

[coffeefreak]

I posted on your other thread, so I thought I'd post on this one and tell you why I'm not using it with my youngest.:001_smile: I don't know if I'll ever use it, even though *I* think it's the best grammar program out there. Here's what doesn't work for her:

 

1. No workbook. They have workbooks for extra practice, but my youngest does best with a workbook approach as opposed to a textbook approach.

 

2. It's in black and white. My youngest still needs color and excitement in her curriculum. When we were doing R&S 2nd grade, her eyes would glaze over and she made tons of mistakes just trying to get through the assignment. We switched to A Beka and she's doing better.

 

3. It's a dry text. It says, "This is a noun, here's a Christian/Mennonite example, now look at these sentences, find all the nouns and write them on a separate piece of paper." Other texts have fun examples, fun activities, fun worksheets. KWIM?

 

4. I actually don't find the writing to be "enough." I supplement my oldest's writing program. My youngest will be doing BJU next year and I'm not going to supplement at all.

 

HTH!

Dorinda

[cin]

The writing I was referring to was just the copying of the assignments; For example: Copy the sentences below. Underling the noun and circle the verb. Then there are 8 or 10 medium sentences. We would do that orally. And that worked great. But now I have a first grader so I don't always have time for that. (My first grader is a BUSY first grader). That is why we are switching to CLE.

 

We are finishing up the 4th grade book and didn't have a lot of the formal writing assignments. I would skip those anyway, because she's taking a writing class in co-op next year :)

[kristinannie]

I have a couple of their pre-K books and I don't love them. There is a lot of writing for the parents all over the pages (in really small print) and so it just looks really busy and my DD3 doesn't really like them (and she LOVES workbooks and wants to do "school"). I haven't seen any of the older kid books though so that is all I can talk about!

[simka2]

Dd and I actually like it, but it's not for everyone. The religious content is so over the top that it's become a running joke for us, but if you're religious that's probably not a good thing. .

 

Oooooh! I am so glad I am not the only one!!!! :lol:

[Donna T.]

I have a serious Love/Hate relationship with R&S English. I am currently in the Hate phase of the cycle. There are things that I really love about it, but I am going to drop it for my youngest son, atleast for next year.

 

My oldest son is a "get down to business" kind of student. He will do anything that I ask him to do and he will do it to the best of his ability. He is personally a very spiritually motivated child and he likes the Biblical flavor. He likes grammar and he learns it well with R&S. However, we had many stops and goes through books 2 and 3. During one of my Hate phases, we switched him over to FLL3. We both loved it but after that I put him back in R&S 4. I think FLL 4 wasn't ready at the time. Well, he did fine with R&S after that and now he really likes it.

 

My younger son is not doing so well with it. We have had several starts and stops with R&S 2. The thing that doesn't work for him is that it is too serious and it stresses him out. He wants to have fun with sentences and R&S's focus on writing things that are true and good just squelch his desire to write at all. For example, if he is supposed to fill in the sentence, "The __________ is blowing", and it is obvious that the answer should be "wind", he gets very stressed because he wants to write, "The (insert something ridiculous) is blowing." Then, he realizes that he isn't supposed to be ridiculous and he cries, and cries, and cries.

 

I switched him to Grammar Ace and he was all smiles and laughing his way through the lessons and worksheets. He was writing thoroughly ridiculous sentences and loving it.

 

I don't know what to do with him. I think I am going to skip the formal Grammar for a year and let him play around with Grammar Ace. It's just not clicking for him anyways. Before using R&S 2 he had used two of the Language Lessons for the Very Young workbooks and done all of FLL 1 and part of FLL 2. So, he has had some grammar. The other day we were in line at the store and I said, " `The man in the truck is my dad.`, what is the verb in that sentence?" and he said, "in the truck" :glare:.

 

I am going to focus on dictation and narrations for him for next year and then reassess.

Edited June 5, 2011 by Donna T.

[gracyomalley]

We've put it aside and picked it back up again...again! Over all, I would prefer to use FLL all the way, and maybe MCT...but my older one is dyslexic and has mostly language based "production" trouble now, so original writing, although improving, is not coming quickly (although he does have good grammar skills and can memorize anything...thanks FLL...) Middle child needs to be held accountable for the details of her work - and FLL simply didn't do that, what with limited exercises and so much oral work. Lastly, I have a third child hitting 2nd grade and working above level, who needs time too...we needed to go back to a grammar program that fostered independence.

 

I had done R&S 2 and 3 (english) with the olders years ago - 3 was solid but boring and drudgery - especially for my son with LDs, which were undiagnosed, and unremediated at the time. He learned alot, but grammar took hours a day. Level 2 was too easy for my then 6 year old daughter...and felt like busy work. We just started them on 4 and 5 this week, for the above reasons. Strengths I already am reminded of are the clear instructions and general independent work, the lessons are not really that long, if you have the level correct for your child (ds now at just turned 11 can do it in 30 minutes, even with corrections - but I also have him do all of some exercises, and only evens or odds of others, depending upon how close to mastery he is), and at these levels there is a writing lesson each week, but it is clear what they need to do - with lots of instruction about structure and why to include things, etc...

 

For dd, we are focusing on punctuation, capitalization, spelling, etc, while learning grammar - she is great at writing long stories - but couldn't be bothered with that stuff.

 

Yes, the kids groaned. Yes, especially the 11 year old complains about the religious bent (we are Episcopalian, so its pretty conservative for us - but we farm, and have always homeschooled, so the work ethic part is fine...). Yes, I know its "alot of chaff with the wheat", but I feel that it is time to just "do it and get it done" in this area for both of them and just like math facts practice, in the end if you copy and correct a gazillion sentences, by golly you'll capitalize your proper nouns and such!!!

 

I don't think I'd personally use it if we did it all orally - FLL is so much better for that type of learning, and so much more "fun" and "language rich". There's a chance I'll drop it after this level and try again for more "fun" LA...we shall see

 

Erin

[lovelaughs_times_three]

I switched him to Grammar Ace and he was all smiles and laughing his way through the lessons and worksheets. He was writing thoroughly ridiculous sentences and loving it.

 

I don't know what to do with him. I think I am going to skip the formal Grammar for a year and let him play around with Grammar Ace.

 

This sentence confused me. Probably because I am new at some of the terminology, but how is Grammar Ace not formal Grammar? Doesn't it teach all the parts of speech, clauses and such? How is that not formal Grammar? :confused:

[Katiebug_1976]

I think it's a fine grammar program. If it floats your boat, go for it. I would rather cut the grass with scissors than use it again. Frankly I found it to be one of the most boring, uninspiring programs out there. But that's me - I love variety, and beautiful surroundings are important to my state of mind. This program had neither. The text is (or was when we used it) straight black and white with no variation in the typeset. It didn't scream "read me!". The content is excellent, though. So my only beef with the product is the packaging so to speak. And I will admit that I haven't even looked at a Rod and Staff book for several years so maybe they have changed the "packaging".

 

:iagree:We used it up until now (we are switching to something else this next year). The grammar is great, but we just got bored to death with what felt like the same old thing day after day after day. The writing lessons were a good introduction, but imho, need to be supplemented with more review throughout the year since there is not much to speak of. I also felt like the diagramming & amount of copying/writing was overkill (which is why we ended up doing a lot of it orally, this helped a lot!), and we didn't care for the King James "thee's & thou's" etc. They just seemed to confuse & frustrate ds to the point he didn't even want to open the book again. Other than that, my dc learned a lot of good, solid grammar from those books. It was just all the little things that added up to be enough to walk away.

[TheAutumnOak]

We use R&S and like it here...A lot of people feel that there are too many written excercises and I agree...But you have to remember that R&S is written as a classroom curriculum, not a homeschool one...So students would have to write their answers down because you can't go around the class having everyone say the answer...We solve this problem by doing some of it orally since we are not in a class setting...

[Clear Creek]

Also, I believe more in copywork, narration, and dictation for writing in the primary and grammar stages. R&S didn't have that. At all. It was copying fill in the blank sentences and it burned my DD out on writing because it was too much repetition. I wish we'd quit it quicker then we did!

 

 

R&S has copywork, narration, and dictation, just not in the English textbook. The copywork is in the penmanship book, dictation is in the phonics/spelling TM (except for 2nd grade), and my children give narrations after they read their story in Reading.

 

R&S really is a thorough LA curriculum when all the parts are used together.

[NineChoirs]

We used several R&S books, including math, spelling, and geography. I never did try their grammar. But I will tell you my impression of their books in general. First of all they are very anti Catholic. This may or may not matter to you but it is nice information to have. I myself had no idea Mennonites hated Catholics so much so it came as a shock to me! I had to use a permanent marker quite a bit throughout the books.

 

Secondly, the books were oh so very boring. In all fairness they were effective at what they taught. They were extremely comprehensive and covered everything at great depth, but they did so in the most painfully boring manner ever. My kids started to hate all subjects that were being covered by R&S. Still, they did learn and retain said information. We were all miserable and the books were pure unadulterated torture.... but they worked. That being said, we never did use any more R&S books. :001_smile:

[lovelaughs_times_three]

First of all they are very anti Catholic. This may or may not matter to you but it is nice information to have. I myself had no idea Mennonites hated Catholics so much so it came as a shock to me! I had to use a permanent marker quite a bit throughout the books.

 

 

Wow. That matters to me a great deal! I am not Catholic. But I don't agree with anyone who disrespects someone else. I have to say, I am also very surprised that Mennonites hold such views. From the outside, they seem so peaceful and gentle. It's hard to imagine them holding such strong, negative opinions!

 

That being said, I've been tempted to do something that I keep deciding against because it would also be disrespectful! I keep being tempted to ask you all for the over-religious examples in the books that you all have found funny. It has piqued my curiosity. They are against organized sports? Really? I didn't know that! So, I keep wanting to ask, and I keep holding myself back. It would be making fun of someone else for their views......

................sheesh! I guess I just did! :blushing: :tongue_smilie:So, I guess I am the pot calling the kettle black!

 

But, I would also want to black out anything that was anti-Catholic. I am with you there!

[Pat in MI]

We found it very boring and the lessons were so long. Just reading the lesson information, I could barely keep my ds concentrating. My opinion is that you can learn grammar without it being so overwhelming boring and long. Just my thoughts.

Blessings,

Pat

[Susie in MS]

First of all they are very anti Catholic. This may or may not matter to you but it is nice information to have. I myself had no idea Mennonites hated Catholics so much so it came as a shock to me! I had to use a permanent marker quite a bit throughout the books.

:001_smile:

 

I have not read all of the R&S books to know what you are talking about. The Mennonite people I know do NOT HATE anyone. They stand strong on their beliefs, but do not hate. And they have used R&S. Do you remember any examples that you can provide to back up this claim?

[Susie in MS]

We found it very boring and the lessons were so long. Just reading the lesson information, I could barely keep my ds concentrating. My opinion is that you can learn grammar without it being so overwhelming boring and long. Just my thoughts.

Blessings,

Pat

 

:iagree:

[Spock]

 

My younger son is not doing so well with it. We have had several starts and stops with R&S 2. The thing that doesn't work for him is that it is too serious and it stresses him out. He wants to have fun with sentences and R&S's focus on writing things that are true and good just squelch his desire to write at all. For example, if he is supposed to fill in the sentence, "The __________ is blowing", and it is obvious that the answer should be "wind", he gets very stressed because he wants to write, "The (insert something ridiculous) is blowing." Then, he realizes that he isn't supposed to be ridiculous and he cries, and cries, and cries.

 

 

We did that section mostly orally. However, I asked my children to tell me 2 things--first, the answer "the book wanted", and second "a silly answer". They enjoyed it that way. If I used the book as seriously as intended, my kids would despise it. I often have to make alterations like this.