Back on the curriculum roller coaster...

[keyjoh62080]

... I am having a hard time sticking with one grammar program. I've been using FLL, LLATL which has grammar included, Easy Grammar and then R & S English 2.

 

I would like to be able to stick with just one. My daughter hasn't said anything about using one book for 1-2 weeks and then I am pulling out the other program again. Grrr...

 

I love the CMish feel of LLATL, I also think I like R&S because I feel like it covers a lot and I have also heard really great things about it. FLL kind of drives me crazy but I see that my daughter is doing really good at memorizing but I know that most of it is not really making any sense to her BUT then I love the idea of Easy Grammar, learning the prepositions first and deleting the prepositional phrases just makes SO much sense to me. I just hear a lot of people saying that their children have not retained much when using EG.

 

I really need to jump off this roller coaster and be consistent with what I am doing with DD. :banghead:

 

Thanks for letting me vent!

[morosophe]

Is there any reason you can't teach "deleting the prepositional phrases" as a technique with any other grammar program? Once your kids learn prepositions, talk about how they function, and encourage her to "cross out" the prepositional phrases all she wants! It's not like it doesn't carry over to another system. It's just that she won't be learning prepositions FIRST. Then again, they don't usually include prepositional phrases in the sentences that need to be analyzed until they get to prepositions in the lesson. (Whoops, I just spelled "analysed" Britishly. Spell-check fixed me right up!)

 

There, that's one item off your list, right?

[keyjoh62080]

Is there any reason you can't teach "deleting the prepositional phrases" as a technique with any other grammar program?

 

Now there's a good thought. We are 3 months into our 2nd year of homeschooling and I am still trying to find my way. I didn't know anything about 'prepositions' until I found Easy Grammar at Goodwill for $1.50. I came home and read through the monster of a book and remember saying, "WOW! This really makes sense."

 

If I could just stop having the freak out moments of feeling like I am not doing enough then maybe I could jump off this roller coaster and stay off this time. :confused: I also need to stay out of Goodwill. I also need to stop comparing my kids to their public school friends. That is what is causing me SO much anxiety.

 

Thanks!

[freesia]

... I am having a hard time sticking with one grammar program. I've been using FLL, LLATL which has grammar included, Easy Grammar and then R & S English 2.

 

I would like to be able to stick with just one. My daughter hasn't said anything about using one book for 1-2 weeks and then I am pulling out the other program again. Grrr...

 

I love the CMish feel of LLATL, I also think I like R&S because I feel like it covers a lot and I have also heard really great things about it. FLL kind of drives me crazy but I see that my daughter is doing really good at memorizing but I know that most of it is not really making any sense to her BUT then I love the idea of Easy Grammar, learning the prepositions first and deleting the prepositional phrases just makes SO much sense to me. I just hear a lot of people saying that their children have not retained much when using EG.

 

I really need to jump off this roller coaster and be consistent with what I am doing with DD. :banghead:

 

Thanks for letting me vent!

 

Do you know what? They are all fine programs. Choose the one that your daughter enjoys the most and stick with it for the rest of the year. Decide then whether it is working or not. Honestly, I do grammar very lightly until grade 5. My ds,who is in sixth now, did fine jumping into grammar at the fifth grade level. You won't mess her up with any of your choices, really. You will burn her out on grammar doing too many programs at once, though.

[....]

We've been homeschooling for 3 years and this is the first year that everyone's settled on something. :glare:

 

It takes a while.

 

I also found that jumping from one grammar program to another the first couple of years did absolutely no damage to their grammar abilities. :D They're turning out fine.

 

You'll find what works!

[boscopup]

How old is she?

 

I do hear ya on the grammar roller coaster. We've gone back and forth between R&S and FLL. If your DD doesn't understand FLL, I'd stick with R&S, as it goes slower and doesn't cover as many things in the early years. When she's matured and is ready for more difficult grammar, that's probably when R&S will ramp up and get difficult. ;)

 

I'm not at all concerned about curriculum hopping a bit in grammar. We jumped into FLL3 this year and have done great, having not completed a 2nd grade level program in any curriculum. Most grammar programs review everything each year, so you can jump in at grade level during the elementary years.

 

As far as finding the prepositional phrases... I think FLL does that once it teaches them, but it just doesn't introduce them until later, so the sentences don't have prepositional phrases until that concept is taught. No biggie! I'm not sure how R&S teaches it... They tend to do "skeleton diagrams", which drive me nuts. I'd rather diagram a whole sentence, just using sentences that only have elements that have been taught thus far. FLL does that. R&S will give more complex sentences and have them just find simple subject and simple predicate. I don't think either way is necessarily better or worse. I just prefer to diagram a whole sentence, as my son WILL say, "What about these words?" when skipping certain words/phrases in a sentence. :tongue_smilie:

[keyjoh62080]

Hello,

 

My daughter is 8. When I say that she doesnt understand FLL, I mean that she is memorizing it well but cannot necessarily 'apply' it to her writing. Sometimes I just feel crazy with all the going back and forth. :001_huh:

 

I settled on HOD this year but still like FIAR so I am doing both. Suprisingly it is working. I do FIAR conversationally with my 1st & 3rd grader. It was hard to just pick one of them....lol! The children liked both as well. I tried to let them choose and pick just one and they couldnt either.

 

I got rid of a lot of stuff and packed away a lot with hopes to just use what I have out. :glare:

 

Sadly, I have a little one who will be 3 in February and I feel like he is getting lost in the mix because I am not doing anything with him one on one besides reading alound from the B4FIAR book list. When I am taking turns doing the 3R's with the olders each one then takes turns with my little helping him on starfall. He always says...."Mommy, can I do kool on your 'puter?" :D

[....]

Hello,

 

My daughter is 8. When I say that she doesnt understand FLL, I mean that she is memorizing it well but cannot necessarily 'apply' it to her writing. Sometimes I just feel crazy with all the going back and forth. :001_huh:

 

 

From what I've seen, kids don't apply grammar to their writing until closer to middle school.

 

Also, are you using a writing program? I think my kids have learned more through writing programs than anything else.

[happyhomemaker25]

I think experimenting now is ok, but be careful as they get older. My two older girls missed out on a lot because I could not settle on a grammar curriculum. For my 8 and 10y both finishing up 3rd grade I use FLL 2 and and Easy Grammar 3.

My older 2 use CLE LA and FLL 3 right now.

I loved R&S but it got to be where it was not worth the battle with my girls. They hated it.

[Ellie]

Girlfriend, you just gotta pick something and stick with it. The end. :D

 

There are success stories for everything you listed. There are unhappy stories with everything you listed. The moral of the story is that it Just Doesn't Matter. You must pick something and stick with it.

 

FLL would make me crazy, so it would not be on my short list, even if my dc would do well with it.

 

FTR, we used EG and loved it. It's my favorite. Your dd is only 8. It takes more than a few months of using *anything* for it to seem to stick. If you were to use EG exclusively, you'd need to add something else for writing...but not R&S, not LLATL, because both of them also teach grammar, and you'd be doubling up. You don't need to do that.

 

So that's my secret: pick something. And put the rest away. :D

[Mrs Twain]

I am an R&S user, and I think it is a great program. If you do the writing part, your kids will apply the grammar. What I really like about the program is how simple they make the explanations. There is some of the memorization component, but there is also the "writing it out" component that helps me see if my child really understands the concept.

 

I usually don't have my child do all of the written exercises, often only about half of the assignment if it is to write out whole sentences. This helps to keep the lessons managable.

 

By the way, I think my kids will be ahead of the public school kids around where we live if we just complete R&S. I don't know what your public schools are like, but ours are not so great, especially with about 30 students per class. I follow a scope and sequence to make sure we are covering everything that the public schools claim they are teaching their kids. This helps me not feel stressed out by what I think the kids down the street may be learning, because I know what the schools are doing and I know that I have all of it in my curriculum. If you are interested in looking at something like that, the Core Knowledge K-8 Sequence is a good one IMO, and it is free:

http://www.coreknowledge.org/download-the-sequence

 

Grammar is such a systematic subject, building on itself as it goes along. I would defintely recommend that you pick one program you think is good and stay with it.

[freesia]

From what I've seen, kids don't apply grammar to their writing until closer to middle school.

 

Also, are you using a writing program? I think my kids have learned more through writing programs than anything else.

:iagree:

[keyjoh62080]

Girlfriend, you just gotta pick something and stick with it. The end. :D

 

 

So that's my secret: pick something. And put the rest away. :D

 

I LOVE the sound of that. Maybe I just needed to hear that from someone...LOL:lol:

Edited November 26, 2011 by keyjoh62080
Ellie, sorry I chopped up your post, but, this is what stood out to me :)

[kandty]

... I am having a hard time sticking with one grammar program. I've been using FLL, LLATL which has grammar included, Easy Grammar and then R & S English 2.

 

I would like to be able to stick with just one. My daughter hasn't said anything about using one book for 1-2 weeks and then I am pulling out the other program again. Grrr...

 

I love the CMish feel of LLATL, I also think I like R&S because I feel like it covers a lot and I have also heard really great things about it. FLL kind of drives me crazy but I see that my daughter is doing really good at memorizing but I know that most of it is not really making any sense to her BUT then I love the idea of Easy Grammar, learning the prepositions first and deleting the prepositional phrases just makes SO much sense to me. I just hear a lot of people saying that their children have not retained much when using EG.

 

I really need to jump off this roller coaster and be consistent with what I am doing with DD. :banghead:

 

Thanks for letting me vent!

 

:grouphug: I completely understand! It's not grammar for us, but spelling and history. I guess I just haven't found the perfect fit for us.

[BatmansWife]

My youngest dd is the same age. I'm thinking of dropping FLL. It's just totally not my style. I think I'm going to order Growing with Grammar and Winning with Writing tomorrow. Not to throw another program at you.....but, hey...maybe you haven't heard of them.

[happycc]

Fll may drive us batty but I know they are retaining it.

 

 

In terms of applying, I think I am seeing some of it peeking through in their writing.

 

However, when I am writing, I never think of grammar rules. Does anyone else? I just start writing what I am thinking. I never say oh next I need a verb after the subject and that is a prepositional phrase when I am writing. So I have never seen how grammar helps writing except for maybe just exposing different kind of sentences while you analyze it perhaps. I have seen grammar helpful more in reading comprehension instead.

 

I remember having a hard time reading and understanding difficult passages. Then I stop and try to diagram it to figure out what that sentence was talking about. You know...find the subject then the verb etc.

[morosophe]

Fll may drive us batty but I know they are retaining it.

 

 

In terms of applying, I think I am seeing some of it peeking through in their writing.

 

However, when I am writing, I never think of grammar rules. Does anyone else? I just start writing what I am thinking. I never say oh next I need a verb after the subject and that is a prepositional phrase when I am writing. So I have never seen how grammar helps writing except for maybe just exposing different kind of sentences while you analyze it perhaps. I have seen grammar helpful more in reading comprehension instead.

 

I remember having a hard time reading and understanding difficult passages. Then I stop and try to diagram it to figure out what that sentence was talking about. You know...find the subject then the verb etc.

 

Here's my experience: You should never, never stop and think about grammar when you're first writing. Talk about losing the flow!

 

No, thinking about grammar and spelling come in when you're revising your material, just like thinking about all the little writing "extras," such as varying sentence structure and replacing "being" verbs with stronger alternatives. If you're anything like me, in the middle of this process you realize that your entire argument would be strengthened if you moved a couple of sentences to another paragraph, and by the time you're done with that, your paper has grown two pages, which is good because you stopped to revise because you'd hit a snag...

 

And now you've had my personal experience with using grammar. Besides being irritated by poorly-constructed sentences, that is. (Please don't tell me about my poorly-constructed sentences, unless they truly do irk you.)

[ChrissySC]

Well, I may be enabling you, but I use more than one resource. If you are going to continue down this path, you need to create a plan that groups the resources together as you need them. You need to outline the teaching that will take place with objectives.

 

So, you can continue in this manner, but I strongly encourage you to create a syllabus and a lesson plan for the work.

 

With that said, it is not the resources that will effect the learning and mastery but rather the attempts to cover too much or a haphazzard manner of attack.

 

As well, grammar in this stage is to be learned and not necessarily applied. The application will become much more evident beginning in the fifth grade. Strive for sentences that have subjects and verbs. Do copywork. Writing will evolve and style will develop. For this reason, I like using Writing Strands because of the assignment sheets. We note the grammar and style issues as objectives. I like Write with the Best and Writer's Express for their focus on editing and proofing after the creative writing or the rough draft.

Edited November 28, 2011 by ChrissySC

[Bloggermom]

I floundered all over the place with grammar: CLE to Growing With Grammar to Shurley and finally back to CLE. I must say, CLE worked the best for us and we are going back to it and sticking to it.