Amanda82 Posted July 17, 2012 Share Posted July 17, 2012 English is one of the last things I need to decide on. I've narrowed it down to Rod & Staff and Shurley. Any experiences or opinions? Pro's and con's? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Random Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 I haven't used Rod & Staff, but I've used Shurley. I thought Shurley was fantastic for teaching the parts of speech, when to use apostrophes, etc. The jingles help students find the parts of speech in a sentence. Shurley is also fantastic for teaching expository writing. Anyone who goes through the first few levels of Shurley can whip out a five-point expository paragraph in no time! The things that didn't work for us: I thought it was weak in helping students to label parts of speech in complex sentences. It seemed to be all memorization and not a lot of 'thinking,' if that makes sense. For instance, the parts of speech were in the same order for every sentence, with little variation. We only went through level 3, though, so that probably came later. My kids absolutely HATED the writing assignments. It was the same thing (My two favorite foods, My two favorite colors, My two favorite this, My two [or three] favorite that), over and over and over, for three levels, once a week. I have no idea if this changes in later levels. There is no diagramming. Best wishes, making your decision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missmoe Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 I have used both Shurley and Rod and Staff. I love the memorization aspect of Shurley for the elementary years and the logical thinking aspect for middle school years. Shurley teaches the parts of speech through jingles and parsing everyday. It has built in review everyday. We skipped the writing portion of the program, but did use the vocabulary portion. My kids loved the jingles and the short lessons. We used levels 2, 4, and 6. After Shurley, I move my kids into Rod and Staff. Rod and Staff focuses more on parts of sentences and how the parts of speeches are used in sentences. It also teaches diagramming. The writing portion of Rod and Staff is an important part of writing instruction for us. Any ?s Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robsiew Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 I've not used Shirley, but I know of it from one of the private schools in town. I use R&S with my oldest. My only thought right off the top of my head is Shirley's emphasis is on parsing and R&S diagrams. One might work better or not as well depending on your child. If your child is NOT detail orientated I would stay away from parsing. We used Analytical Grammar for a short bit and my son HATED it. It focused on parsing. If your child does well with details Shirley would be just fine. My son thrives on R&S... he's a big picture guy and diagramming makes much more sense to him. We only use R&S for the grammar portion, not the writing, so I can't speak much to the writing portion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haupia Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 We have used Shurley this year, and I love it. My kids have such a better understanding of sentence structure. My favorite part of it is it will tell you to make a sentence with exact parts of speech and then tell you to improve through syn, ant, and word changes. For example. article adj adj, noun verb adv adv...the they fill in the blank and improve the sentence. I also like how they are so clear with instructions in the book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarreymere Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 R&S is much less expensive and I found that the lessons in R&S were a lot shorter and less painful than Shurley, especially if you do the oral review (in the tm) and do some of the exercises orally. Don't try to have your dc write out all of the exercises in R&S unless your dc enjoy writing, mine hated that. Of course, it does make for great handwriting practice....... Both products really teach grammar, IMHO. I switched from Shurley because I couldn't stand the jingles, thought there was a lot of busywork, I hate buying multiple books for things, thought it was not laid out well, and I didn't like the way it teaches writing. I found R&S easier for me to use. However, R&S doesn't really teach writing either, although it does take a stab at it in such a way that is fairly easy to skip over in favor of your favorite writing curriculum, if that makes sense. R&S does teach diagramming. R&S does get boring, to the point where one would rather pour gasoline on oneself and light it rather than face yet another day. Shurley isn't exactly exciting but it doesn't seem to cause that extreme a reaction in me, even with the jingles....... I'm still looking myself for a language arts curriculum I can tolerate that will actually teach my kids what I'd like them to learn. We are taking a break from R&S right now, actually. My kid is so far ahead of grade level in grammar from using R&S that I felt we deserved it. If you want to really learn parsing, get the Practice Island book set or just the tm from MCT. Don't get the rest of the Island set, just that one, and you have a great parsing practice curriculum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chepyl Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 I could not handle the scripted aspect of Shurley. The lessons were long, repetitive, and boring. R&S may not be exciting, and it is repetitive, but the lessons are short. I don't think the repetition is over the top. It is enough for mastery and you can skip a lesson here and there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amanda82 Posted July 18, 2012 Author Share Posted July 18, 2012 Thanks so much!! I think maybe we'll go with R&S for this year :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsmomma Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 One more thought. We have done both R&S and Shurley. I love the simplicity of R&S, Shurley was to much for me after a while but... my friend with 3 older kids does SHurley for 9th grade to review and complete the grammar season. The kids say the jingles help them remember for their ACT/SAT testing. They didnt love it at the time but all three have come back and said it was helpful. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathleen. Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 If you want to really learn parsing, get the Practice Island book set or just the tm from MCT. Don't get the rest of the Island set, just that one, and you have a great parsing practice curriculum. I've been wanting to add MCT because of all the great extras. We already do Shurley English and it covers sentence parsing in depth. I think from samples I've seen of MCT, Shurley is a little more stronger in that regard. So I don't want overkill with sentence parsing, but the extra practice might be good. I would like to get the MCT books, but would Grammar Island be redundant. Which books did you get? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen in CO Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 I've tried both but use neither. If I had to choose one of the two, I'd use R&S. It is less expensive, and the jingles in Shurley drove me crazy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowstorm84 Posted July 20, 2012 Share Posted July 20, 2012 We are going to use Shurley. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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