I am grammar dumb.... KISS help

[paysensmom]

We have been working on KISS grammar level one and I am having difficulty teaching this to my third grader. She does not get the subject or verbs correct when underlining. She will underline words like much and best. I don't see where this is actually taught in the workbook or in the AK that I printed.

I am sure I am just missing it, so please guide me!

[Poke Salad Annie]

We use KISS grammar. When we started out, we used Sheldon's Language Lessons to give a background for the parts of speech and punctuation.

 

I wouldn't advise jumping into the KISS program without that background. There are quite a few *free* programs floating around on googlebooks, if you are looking at something inexpensive.

 

Editing.....

 

My best advise is to make sure that the parts of speech are well understood, and that you've brushed up on your grammar skills as well. An old copy of Warriner's Grammar and Composition is nice to have around for reference. Copies of the Third Course can be found at the usual resellers online for about a dollar plus shipping.

 

I would also go back to the very fundamentals as you are teaching parts of speech. You could start out by giving very simple sentences, such as, She cried. or Birds sang. Make sure that she understands what a noun is, and also what a verb is, then add on some easy adjectives: The yellow birds sang. or The pretty girl cried. Next you can add some adverbs, and go on from there. Once these parts of speech are understood, then I would start KISS grammar.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Poke Salad Annie

[MAIMOM]

I love the way its taught in Shurley English...

Hobo turned.

Who turned? Hobo - subject

What is being said about the Hobo? He turned- Verb

My girls never mix them up when we follow this question answer sequence.

[boscopup]

In the answer key, page 9 has a section titled "Additional Methods for Identifying Subjects and Finite Verbs".

 

Also, expect it to take TIME. You will have plenty of practice, as every single exercise has you find the subject and verb. KISS is something that we do *together*. I do not send him off to work on his own. We sit on the couch and discuss each sentence. Often, I'll ask questions like, "What action is happening in the sentence? Who is performing that action?"

 

I do think it would be helpful to have some introduction to grammar before doing KISS. I have not done KISS with a child that didn't have a grammar background. We'd done half of FLL3 when we started, so we had already learned nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, predicate nominatives (nouns), predicate adjectives, and prepositional phrases. Even with that knowledge, sometimes he'll still pick out some oddball word in the sentence to be the subject or verb, and I just look at him and say, "Is 'much' a verb?" Then we both laugh. :lol: After doing several KISS exercises, he gets them right 99% of the time now, and he really does know how to find a subject and verb. Even if your child has learned grammar in another program, this is much harder because the sentences are real literature and don't fit the pattern of the canned sentences in most programs.

 

Also, I highly recommend working through the grade 3 book YOURSELF first, just so you know what you're doing. It won't take you nearly as much time as your child, since you've probably had grammar before and just need a refresher. :) It made it a lot easier for me to discuss the sentences once I'd gone through most of the level 1 exercises and understood where we were heading.

[Poke Salad Annie]

I also teach that each word wears a *hard hat* (like the yellow construction type), to get my message across. (This always gets a few guffaws from my audience. :D) They have their *job* for that sentence, though it may be different in other sentences.

 

One example I can think of is down. Since prepositional phrases are at the forefront of the KISS program, we can spot one of those a mile away. However, we know that down is not always a preposition, so we must look at its *job* in the sentence. Which *hard hat* is it wearing in the sentence? Does it carry an object of its own? What does it tell us, and what questions does it answer?

 

I think that's the kind of thinking you want to instill so that when you analyze the sentences in KISS, there will be less confusion and more understanding.

 

Oh, and I absolutely agree with boscopup about reading through the whole book yourself before you start teaching.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Poke Salad Annie

[letsplaymath]

We have been working on KISS grammar level one and I am having difficulty teaching this to my third grader. She does not get the subject or verbs correct when underlining. She will underline words like much and best. I don't see where this is actually taught in the workbook or in the AK that I printed.

I am sure I am just missing it, so please guide me!

 

When we started KISS, my daughter did not have any grammar background. She was (still is) also a perfectionist who hated to be corrected on anything. We took it very slow, because I tend toward a very laid-back style of eclectic nearly-semi-unschooling.

 

Are you using the 2nd grade or 3rd grade book? We started with the 2nd grade book and used it for 2-4th grade. (As I said, we took our time.) I think KISS works better using a lower grade level than your student's age. Remember that Ed is a college professor, so his idea of an appropriate exercise for each grade level is not based on experience teaching those ages.

 

Also, like boscopup, I never expected my daughter to work on her own with KISS. Even now, as an 8th grader, she works with me and we alternate solving the sentences.

 

Hints:

 

It's usually easiest to find the verb first. What is happening, or being done, in your sentence? And then find who is doing it, as MAIMOM suggested.

 

When you get the correct subject and verb, you should be able to read them aloud as a mini-sentence. For instance:

Grethel shared her bread with Hansel.

What is happening? Sharing, so the verb is

shared

.

Who shared?

Grethel

.

Mini sentence:

Grethel shared.

If the mini-sentence doesn't make sense on its own, you probably don't have the correct subject and verb. But this leaves out the complement, which will be taught later in the KISS lessons. So the true mini-sentence for the above example should be, "Grethel shared bread." Some mini-sentences will not make sense without that complement at the end.

 

Describing words are extras. They don't count as part of the subject or verb. They are part of the "subject phrase" or the "verb phrase" --- that is, they connect to the subject or to the verb and add meaning to it. But when you are looking for the bare-bones structure of the sentence, they can be left out.

 

This is an area where we expect our students to make mistakes until they get the hang of finding subjects and verbs and complements, so the main thing to pay attention to now is not whether your daughter can do it perfectly every time by herself, but whether she understands the answer and sees that it makes sense when you look it up together. If she understands, then she will eventually learn to do it herself.

[RootAnn]

Also, like boscopup, I never expected my daughter to work on her own with KISS. Even now, as an 8th grader, she works with me and we alternate solving the sentences.

 

:iagree:

I work with my oldest on KISS. We often alternate solving the sentences, especially at the beginning. If we disagree, we'll mark them in different colored pens & then see who is right when we check the answer key. :tongue_smilie: