boscopup Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 I want to say a BIG thank you to Denise (Let's Play Math) for explaining how KISS Grammar works! Finally I understood and was able to delve into this curriculum. It is excellent! I'm using it on my 10" Android tablet (ezPDF app to do annotations). I downloaded the 3rd grade level 1 workbook from this page and started working through it myself before starting with my son. Boy have I learned a lot so far! And boy does it get hard sometimes! :D I'm almost done working through level 1 myself. Took me about a week, but my son will take much longer than that. ;) Today, I started level 1 with my 7 year old (he's advanced in reading/language, so the grade 3 workbook should be fine). He really liked it! We were just finding subjects and verbs and marking out incomplete sentences, but it brought out discussion. And that made it so worth it! Now he's halfway through FLL3, so he has been exposed to many of these grammar topics already - for example, he pointed out the predicate adjectives on his own, and he also noticed prepositional phrases. Both of those are taught later in level 1, but I can tell he'll enjoy finding all these things as we go along. This may also be good for his perfectionism... He's going to be wrong sometimes (and it says so in the introduction), and he's going to run into parts of the sentence that he can't analyze yet. That's to be expected, and we shouldn't worry about it. I'm glad the intro mentioned that, so when we run into it, I can say, "Remember what it said about this..." ;) I also love that you are continually finding several major items, so you're not going to forget them. It doesn't have to have spiral review, because the review is built in. You're always finding subject, verb, complements, prepositional phrases, etc. once you learn those topics. So very cool curriculum. I am impressed with what I've seen so far in level 1! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsplaymath Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 You're welcome! I'm glad you and your son are enjoying KISS so far. Perfectionism is tough. My daughter tends that way, and if I try to bite off more than she can chew (as happened today), she ends up face down on the couch, refusing to deal with the world. We had an extra-long holiday break, and for our first day back I should have just tried two sentences (one for each of us to analyze). But they were short, and I decided to go for four of them. She ran into the phrase "to harness", which sounds like an infinitive (as in "to harness the horse") -- but in this particular sentence it happened to be a prepositional phrase ("breaking a horse to harness"). Facesplat! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critterfixer Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I was glad to read that one does not have to accomplish a lesson per day. I was feeling like a tenderfoot breaking a lesson over two or three days or scaling back some of the exercises which seemed to be too much writing for my boys. Now I don't feel as much pressure to get through that second grade book. They love it though. And I think it's slowly percolating, although I asked them to do a few basic sentences on their own today and they really flew all to pieces over that. But as far as the pieces go they seem to be able to find them when I go over the questions they should ask to identify subjects, verbs and complements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 We are loving it in our house too. LOTS of discussion, and we've begun using the KISS method to analyze my students' own work. Very thought-provoking and absolutely different than most standard grammar texts (in a good way ;)) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
faiths13 Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I have been wondering how to use KISS grammar myself many times after looking at the site. Is there a thread where she explained to you how to use it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 I have been wondering how to use KISS grammar myself many times after looking at the site. Is there a thread where she explained to you how to use it? This link (linked in the OP) is Denise's explanation of how to use it. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyP Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I have been wondering how to use KISS grammar myself many times after looking at the site. Is there a thread where she explained to you how to use it? Here is the entire thread. I may be thick-headed, but I needed the whole thread to figure it out.:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloggermom Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I was excited about KISS grammar at the beginning, but it was SO CONFUSING to me. Probably because I was never taught grammar in school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I wish Dr. Vavra would bring in a co-writer, editor, and/or designer who would whip this program into organizational shape. It is a mess! I would rather pay for something that was user-friendly than waste the man-hours being perplexed. It is too bad because I think there are interesting things about KISS, but yikes! KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. Bill (who can only afford to lose so many brain-cells :tongue_smilie:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 I wish Dr. Vavra would bring in a co-writer, editor, and/or designer who would whip this program into organizational shape. It is a mess! I would rather pay for something that was user-friendly than waste the man-hours being perplexed. It is too bad because I think there are interesting things about KISS, but yikes! KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. Bill (who can only afford to lose so many brain-cells :tongue_smilie:) Are you talking about the website, or the materials themselves? I've been able to understand the workbooks just fine. I downloaded the grade 3 workbook and AK, and I read the AK material (written to the teacher), then I go over and read the student material and work through the exercise, checking my work with the AK. I am glad I went through it myself first. It makes a lot of sense to me now that I've just done it. Again, I'm almost through with level 1 and just started DS. I think he'll be fine with it. I can understand everything in level 1, and it seems to be organized pretty well (though I did notice that the student workbook and AK had a different order for two of the levels... around 1.2 or 1.3... somewhere in there, they were swapped, which led to momentary confusion, but a quick look at the TOC sorted it out). The only man hours I've spent have been working through the material myself, just to reacquaint myself with the grammar constructs being taught - teacher training. I didn't have any trouble understanding it once I jumped in. I was sick this week, so I had plenty of hours to sit there and mark subjects/verbs/complements/prepositional phrases/etc. on millions of sentences all day long. :lol: But again, I wasn't perplexed while doing it. I was just spending that time actually going through the materials (which are not meant to be done in a week ;) ). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I wish Dr. Vavra would bring in a co-writer, editor, and/or designer who would whip this program into organizational shape. It is a mess! I would rather pay for something that was user-friendly than waste the man-hours being perplexed. It is too bad because I think there are interesting things about KISS, but yikes! KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. Bill (who can only afford to lose so many brain-cells :tongue_smilie:) :lol: I've been thinking about this a lot lately. We're using MEP and about to start KISS. Free resources of such caliber are an incredible gift; but I also think that market forces _can_ (though don't always) refine a product and increase its value: in this case, usability. Your point about man-hours is excellent. Time is expensive. On the other hand, folks with sufficient material resources have many more options, so it seems perhaps appropriate that something like KISS requires coin of different sort ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetic license Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 So if one were to start this program in 2nd grade as recommended, what would you do before that? FLL? Or is KISS doable in 1st grade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 :lol: I've been thinking about this a lot lately. We're using MEP and about to start KISS. Free resources of such caliber are an incredible gift; but I also think that market forces _can_ (though don't always) refine a product and increase its value: in this case, usability. Your point about man-hours is excellent. Time is expensive. On the other hand, folks with sufficient material resources have many more options, so it seems perhaps appropriate that something like KISS requires coin of different sort ... I'm just thinking that while Dr Vevra may have some gifts, aesthetically organizing material on a page is not among them. I do appreciate that he goes this from the goodness of his heart, I just wish he had a collaborator who could package the material in a tasteful fashion. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) So if one were to start this program in 2nd grade as recommended, what would you do before that? FLL? Or is KISS doable in 1st grade? I wonder too. Button's in the middle of first and we're starting it now ... Spy Car -- I hope my comment didn't seem snitty! I agree completely with what you are saying. Edited January 19, 2012 by serendipitous journey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetic license Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 I wonder too. Button's in the middle of first and we're starting it now ... Do let us know how it goes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critterfixer Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Whether or not it could be used in first grade would really depend on the language skills of the child. An early reader with a good grasp of sentences in general and a good idea of what constitutes a noun, pronoun and a verb might be able to handle it. I know that my two would not have been able to handle KISS in first grade. Too much reading of the sentences and too much analysis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 (edited) Wait for 2nd grade and use the 2nd grade workbook. The materials accelerate so fast that you will have a problem if you are a year ahead. Many people (myself included) find that his workbooks are between 1 and 3 years ahead of other traditional grammar materials. Also, the books are not exactly a year long. We took much longer (2 years) on the 3rd grade book. Also, I would say that the grammar program Ed has written is EXCELLENT, but his website is horrible. I have even looked for someone who could help him with the website pro bono but have not found anyone, yet. Ruth in NZ Edited January 20, 2012 by lewelma Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted January 20, 2012 Author Share Posted January 20, 2012 Wait for 2nd grade and use the 2nd grade workbook. The materials accelerate so fast that you will have a problem if you are a year ahead. Many people (myself included) find that his workbooks are between 1 and 3 years ahead of other traditional grammar materials. Also, the books are not exactly a year long. We took much longer (2 years) on the 3rd grade book. Gotta agree with this. I haven't looked at the 2nd grade book, but going through the 3rd grade book, it ramps up FAST, and even I was getting multiple things wrong, and I had a good grammar education in school (I may have forgotten 95% of it, but it's all review for me :lol:). Complements are taught in level 1, and we've learned most of them in FLL3 (haven't gotten to indirect objects yet, but we've done the others). What makes KISS much harder is that it's using real sentences, not textbook sentences. So you can't just follow the pattern and figure it out easily, and there may be grammatical structures that you haven't been introduced to yet, making it even more difficult to analyze the parts that you do know. It even throws in things like: "To win is wonderful." In that sentence, the subject is "to win". That's not what a 3rd grader will normally see in a grammar textbook. I imagine that's probably not seen until middle school, at least? So yeah, this feels pretty advanced. I'm comfortable using the 3rd grade book with my son, since he is advanced in grammar, but I also know that he's going to be challenged by this. He's not really challenged by FLL3 (he's learning from it, but not challenged by it). I'm ok with that, but KISS is a little more fun because of the challenge. We'll continue with FLL3 as originally planned, and we'll just pull out KISS now and then for a fun challenge, taking it slowly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nansk Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 While I agree the web site could be better designed, several forum members (incl. myself) have tried our best to explain the KISS levels and the workbooks. There are now many posts about how to use KISS, which workbooks to download, etc. There is also an active Yahoo group where Ed answers questions personally. The Files section of the Yahoo group has a 'getting started' guide. I believe the time it takes to read through the posts on this forum to understand the KISS progression is worth it. BTW, poetic licence, my first grader was able to start the KISS grade 2 (level 1) workbook slowly. We only did 1-2 sentences a day, because we are afterschooling. However, perhaps you can better utilize her first year in working through the KISS levels yourself. Also, imho, some basic understanding of the parts of speech will be useful. You could do FLL or the free Grammar Land or MCT Grammar Island (grammar only) for this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 My 1st grader also uses Kiss Grade 2--it's been going well, but it definitely provides a challenge (in a good way). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsplaymath Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 So if one were to start this program in 2nd grade as recommended, what would you do before that? FLL? Or is KISS doable in 1st grade? I would just play with language in 1-2nd grade and not worry about studying grammar at all, except for whatever comes up naturally. Have lots of conversations, learn fun words, let the little ones narrate while you take dictation, encourage them to write captions for their drawings, etc. Gotta agree with this. I haven't looked at the 2nd grade book, but going through the 3rd grade book, it ramps up FAST, and even I was getting multiple things wrong, and I had a good grammar education in school (I may have forgotten 95% of it, but it's all review for me :lol:). That's one reason we have taken so long to work through the levels -- that, and natural laziness. My daughter and I have been doing KISS for at least 4 years, and we're only now starting KISS Level 3, which is "officially" the 3rd year of study. We're learning, but slowly, and the pace doesn't worry me. We still have plenty of school years to go... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critterfixer Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 When I first started using KISS with my second graders I kept FLL at hand to help them review what a noun, pronoun, verb, etc was. They had just done FLL 1. I also downloaded and read through Grammarland with them. They LOVED that, and it really helped them with KISS to think of those words belonging to the characters in the book. I even got comments from my sons regarding the "messy" sentences that resulted from a lot of adjectives, and how tired Dr. Verb must be with Mr. Adverb's words hanging all over him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodland Mist Academy Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 I also downloaded and read through Grammarland with them. They LOVED that, and it really helped them with KISS to think of those words belonging to the characters in the book. :iagree: Grammar-land is a gem! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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