Has anyone used KISS younger than Gr2?

[JohannaM]

I thought I saw someone mention using KISS grammar with a 5 or 6 year old a month or two ago and didn't have a chance to follow up at the time. I am interested to hear how it is going because we are using it with my 5.75 yo. She was asking to do grammar and we had done some condensed FLL1 the previous summer and I was not excited about the thought of trying to do that again! Meanwhile, I had been working through KISS myself and really liked the approach.

 

We have been using the Gr2 level 1 (I think of it as level 0.5 because I plan to follow it with the Gr3 level 1 :tongue_smilie:) together with Montessori grammar symbols. I write sentences on the white board and she places the symbol over the word (we had to augment a little and create a 'complement' symbol). I've been really surprised at how well it is going. She has to work at it, figuring out what the subject, verb and complement are, but by the end of a section i.e. finding complements, finding helping verbs she is getting almost every one right.

 

The only snag we have run into was the contractions exercises. Even though she can read quite well, she had never been asked to 'decode' a contraction into the original words. So, we just skipped the KISS exercises and did a couple matching worksheets I found online.

[crazyforlatin]

I did use KISS, Grade 2, when DD was maybe 5 or 6, but it felt like busywork because we had already read through Grammar Island, listened to Grammar-Land, read through a bunch of Brian Cleary grammar books, used part of FLL 1, and talked about English grammar while studying Latin. I dropped it, and have decided I would start with Grade 6 to see if more complex sentence structures will provide more brain work rather than busywork.

 

But if you've only used a part of FLL1 and have a fluent reader, I would think Grade 2 would be fine. I like that the author seems to only require underlining and that the sentences are simple and come from classic books.

Edited July 5, 2012 by crazyforlatin

[serendipitous journey]

We tried it for a bit with Button (KISS grade 2), then 6 1/2, but ended up dropping it b/c I was streamlining our days; also, there was some point where he seemed to be stalling.

 

Now Button is NOT an accelerated reader. Well, he is well above grade level by this time (was a non-reader at 5 1/2, is now almost 7), but not accelerated by the standards of these boards -- he doesn't esp. love reading and doesn't spend much time doing it.

 

But regarding KISS, if the child seems interested, why not try it? If you stall and really want to keep moving, you could probably do it by pulling sentences from the child's other reading and using them instead of the ones in the program. Also, I'd definitely do the Grade 2 for that age (not first level of grade 3)...