Justifying Rod & Staff English 7

[Chris in SC]

My 7th grade DS is questioning the usefulness of Rod & Staff English 7. He is growing bored with the complexities of verbals and noun clauses and diagramming them. I am losing him. I have slowed down and some days he really seems to get it, but two days later he is confused. Part of it, I am sure, is his lack of desire.

 

My question is how useful is this information? How do I justify it to him? Should I switch to a less analytical text, or continue to let him practice until he gets it?

 

Chris in SC

[Ellie]

My 7th grade DS is questioning the usefulness of Rod & Staff English 7. He is growing bored with the complexities of verbals and noun clauses and diagramming them. I am losing him. I have slowed down and some days he really seems to get it, but two days later he is confused. Part of it, I am sure, is his lack of desire.

 

My question is how useful is this information? How do I justify it to him? Should I switch to a less analytical text, or continue to let him practice until he gets it?

 

Chris in SC

You can skip much of the grammar and do the composition and other stuff.

[Chris in SC]

Thanks, I might do that. Any one else have an opinion?

[5LittleMonkeys]

My two oldest are getting bored with R&S even though we are doing just the oral review and the worksheets. We don't use any of the composition exercises. We decided that we would just give it a rest for a month or so and have put Killgallon into that time slot. They will get some grammar from the Killgallon and we also discuss grammar during writing so I'm not overly worried about it.

[MIch elle]

I'm GLAD we did it because his first year in private school (9th gr.) they had to know it all except diagramming. The grammar came fast - so they were expected to know it already and teacher was reviewing & testing. Yup - verbals, gerunds, PA & all.

 

My younger ds attend public in gr. 8 & now gr 9 and they do not have to know that level of grammar (so far). He did CLE LA 7 which is a bit easier than R&S E. 7.

 

It depends on your goals.

Edited October 10, 2011 by MIch elle

[Colleen in NS]

My 7th grade DS is questioning the usefulness of Rod & Staff English 7. He is growing bored with the complexities of verbals and noun clauses and diagramming them. I am losing him. I have slowed down and some days he really seems to get it, but two days later he is confused. Part of it, I am sure, is his lack of desire.

 

My question is how useful is this information? How do I justify it to him? Should I switch to a less analytical text, or continue to let him practice until he gets it?

 

It does depend on your goals. I want my kids to practice grammar every year (and yes, ds got bored and sometimes confused with R&S 7 last year, but it's all repeated and built on this year in book 8) so that writing exercises go more easily for them in the future. I want them to understand our language AND to be able to verbalize what they understand. I want them to have the analytical skills involved in grammar study. So that's what I tell them, esp. when they get bored.

[Momling]

My two oldest are getting bored with R&S even though we are doing just the oral review and the worksheets. We don't use any of the composition exercises. We decided that we would just give it a rest for a month or so and have put Killgallon into that time slot. They will get some grammar from the Killgallon and we also discuss grammar during writing so I'm not overly worried about it.

 

I was also going to suggest Killgallon. The nice thing about those books is the connection between the grammar and the writing. Kids can see real authors creating interesting sentences by using prepositional phrases or gerunds or appositives or whatever is sending him to sleep with Rod and Staff.

[Chris in SC]

Thanks. The Killgallon grammar looks really good! This will help him see the importance of grammar.

 

I agree that having a complete understanding of sentence structure will be helpful. Part of our problem is that he is taking a separate writing class, so we just skip the writing and move on to the next grammar lesson. I might just give him review assignments or work in Killgallon on the days where the lesson is about writing, to slow down our pace.

 

Thanks so much for the help!!

 

Chris in SC

[Chris in VA]

Let me just add that, once he hits the SAT and ACT tests, he'll be really glad he knows that grammar inside and out. You can get a good score on the verbal section if you are well-read, because a lot of the grammar section's correct answers just "sound right" to an educated "ear," but you can get a terrific score if you know the "picky" details, the ones that just can't be figured out that way! :001_smile:

[Testimony]

Let me just add that, once he hits the SAT and ACT tests, he'll be really glad he knows that grammar inside and out. You can get a good score on the verbal section if you are well-read, because a lot of the grammar section's correct answers just "sound right" to an educated "ear," but you can get a terrific score if you know the "picky" details, the ones that just can't be figured out that way! :001_smile:

 

I agree with you. My friend (Janice in NJ) told me that her son did really well on the SATs and she had him do the entire Rod and Staff curriculum. It convinced me to remain in Rod and Staff.

 

Blessings,

Karen

[SkiMom]

My son is now starting rhetoric stage, so I decided to drop R&S after Book 8. I thought I would just have him review grammar concepts with a workbook. The funny thing is that we both missed R&S so much that after a few weeks of school we went back to it! :lol: We've decided to complete the entire program through Book 10. And this is from my math/science son!

 

BTW, I just did that verbals section with my 12 year old dd in Grade 7 and it was hard for her too. The grammar in Books 7 and 8 are tough, there is no denying that, but we are going to keep going because there really is value in learning it. Both of my dc refer to their grammar knowledge when writing, and I refer to it when editing their work. This isn't something that just happened, it has developed over the years, so I would encourage you to keep going. :001_smile:

[mjbucks1]

Let me just add that, once he hits the SAT and ACT tests, he'll be really glad he knows that grammar inside and out. You can get a good score on the verbal section if you are well-read, because a lot of the grammar section's correct answers just "sound right" to an educated "ear," but you can get a terrific score if you know the "picky" details, the ones that just can't be figured out that way! :001_smile:

:iagree: My son took the ACT this past spring (end of 8th grade) and scored a 35 on the English section (he only missed 2 questions out of 70!!). He has used R&S since 4th grade and studies Latin, but that is it. I also love how really KNOWING how to put sentences together has helped his writing (he hates to write!!). I too like the analytical thought that R&S teaches, so I will be using it with all my kiddos :001_smile:.

[athomemom]

In my years of homeschooling I have not heard of Killgallon grammar. (where have I been?)It looks great. I am off to check out more of the books available. At the moment my boys use Easy Grammar and Writing Strands. Rod and Staff has always seemed thorough, but it was overwhelming to my boys. They have always tested well using EG, fwiw.