EMS83 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 I have GWG grades 1 & 2 and was going to start DD with that in the fall and likely stick with it unless there was a huge problem. However, I was looking at the KISS website one last time and am now waffling. Has anyone successfully used KISS with their first grader? Would a year or two of GWG be better before jumping into KISS? Or would it rehash too many concepts? Thoughts? Experiences? Red flags? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nansk Posted June 5, 2012 Share Posted June 5, 2012 There is no KISS for first grade. We used a major part of the KISS second grade workbook successfully in first grade. I would say a year of basic parts of speech exposure (is that what GWG 1 does?) would be useful. But then again, you don't need to buy GWG for that. It would be enough to read through the free Grammar Land book before starting the KISS second grade workbook. Even if you do GWG 1/2, it would likely not overlap/rehash concepts because KISS is advanced grammar and has challenging, interesting sentences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgr Posted June 5, 2012 Share Posted June 5, 2012 We did GWG alone in the first half of the year, and then started also doing KISS. She ended up doing GWG fairly independently after I would read and highlight the explanation text (explaining/expounding as necessary) with her. KISS we do on the iPad using Notability, or orally - but together. GWG ended up being a good introduction to concepts, and KISS an exercise in implementation. FWIW, it seems I generally tend to pick and choose what works for us, and apply it in ways that work for us. I'm often combining resources... :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted June 5, 2012 Share Posted June 5, 2012 (edited) We did GWG alone in the first half of the year, and then started also doing KISS. She ended up doing GWG fairly independently after I would read and highlight the explanation text (explaining/expounding as necessary) with her. KISS we do on the iPad using Notability, or orally - but together. GWG ended up being a good introduction to concepts, and KISS an exercise in implementation. FWIW, it seems I generally tend to pick and choose what works for us, and apply it in ways that work for us. I'm often combining resources... :tongue_smilie: This is similar to what we did; though I dropped GWG entirely b/c we weren't getting retention, even in the newer format. The sentences GWG uses were so formulaic that Button didn't generalize the concepts well; he tended to think that each part of speech is found in a particular spot in a sentence (as in, beginning, middle, end, &c) as opposed to serving a particular function. KISS went well at first, but Button seems to have a bit of a conceptual block with some of the complements and I am not sure about powering through it, so we're taking a grammar break. Currently I plan to use either Evan-Moor's Grammar and Punctuation (I've linked to Grade 1 at Amazon) or the Critical Thinking Company's "Language Smarts" over the summer, and either do KISS in 2nd or start it in 3rd. The Evan-Moor products I've used are very good and also enjoyable. I'm considering "Language Smarts" b/c Button will be sitting an assessment exam at the beginning of 2nd and a state standardized test mid-way through 2nd (via our charter program) and I think I might like to add test prep skills to the mix, and Language Smarts would cover grammar + language arts testing skills. For pure grammar, though, I would probably suggest starting with KISS grade 2 (which is free) and maybe do an Evan-Moor if you need something different. I really can't suggest that you use GWG b/c of the problems we have and the uselessness of it at the end of the day (to us), but others have been able to employ it well. ETA: the best prep for KISS would probably be for YOU to work through the Year 2 sentences. Naturally you could skim a good bit of it; but I found a surprising amount was not obvious to me, and if you have a handle on where things are going I think it will help. I suppose I should do this thoroughly over the summer, now that I think on it ... Edited June 5, 2012 by serendipitous journey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pgr Posted June 5, 2012 Share Posted June 5, 2012 ETA: the best prep for KISS would probably be for YOU to work through the Year 2 sentences. Naturally you could skim a good bit of it; but I found a surprising amount was not obvious to me, and if you have a handle on where things are going I think it will help. I suppose I should do this thoroughly over the summer, now that I think on it ... :iagree: :iagree: :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted June 5, 2012 Share Posted June 5, 2012 ETA: the best prep for KISS would probably be for YOU to work through the Year 2 sentences. Naturally you could skim a good bit of it; but I found a surprising amount was not obvious to me, and if you have a handle on where things are going I think it will help. I suppose I should do this thoroughly over the summer, now that I think on it ... :iagree::iagree::iagree: We're using KISS grade 3 workbook, and I went through most of it myself before starting DS. I'm so glad I did! It made more sense to me, and I was better able to help him with the tricky sentences. We used FLL1-3, so I can't comment on GWG. I did find it helpful to have already learned some basic parts of speech definitions in FLL first, but I like the idea of Grammar Land for that instead of GWG/FLL. We also use KISS on our tablet (Android with ezPDF app). Makes it more fun! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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