Please explain why we teach parts of speech.

[Alicia64]

I'm not asking in a rude way at all. I'm honestly curious. I'm teaching my boys the parts of speech. In fact I'm enjoying learning the parts of speech right along with them. I have a very poor grammar background.

 

But that said, I'm a paid writer. I've always been told that I have the creative end of writing, but I'm lousy at grammar. So through the years I've worked hard to learn what I missed as a kid.

 

But still, as I work wtih my boys about what a preposition or conjunction is -- I think, "why are we learning this?" Would somebody really write "will go to the store" and someone else will have say, "Hey, you forgot the pronoun."

 

???

 

That seems bizarre to me. I mean, I get the importance of making all the verbs match and not splitting infinitives. Okay, maybe I just answered my own question.

 

Still, I'm curious what the Hive says.

 

Alley

[merry gardens]

I can think of several reasons. It's a way to catagorize information and it can help make other learning and communication easier. Spelling of homonyms can sometimes be distinguished by which part of speech the words are. Reading comprehension may improve if the reader can quickly distinguish subject from direct object and objects of preposition, etc. (While trying to inspire my math and science minded children to learn grammar more thoroughly, I once pulled out some college science texts to show my children the type of English language used in science texts.) Foreign languages may be easier if the learned knows his/her native language's part of speech. Plus, knowing parts of speech may help correct or prevent some common grammar errors, like using adjectives in place of adverbs. Language is one mark of an education.

[Kuovonne]

I teach parts of speech so that I can teach parts of the sentence. I teach those so I can teach phrases and clauses. Once my kid understands several different types of phrases and clauses I can more easily have meaningful discussions with my child about how to revise her writing. I personally find parts of speech really boring, but necessary to understand before getting to the fun parts of grammar.

If you don't know the difference between an adjective and an adverb, it will be difficult to correctly know the difference between "good" and "well".

[Mergath]

It's certainly helpful when learning a foreign language.

[elegantlion]

As a creative writer (hey I can say I've been paid too now) who also had grammar deficits, I've learned alongside ds. It's made me more confident as a writer, yet I still don't feel totally confident in grammar. I think the parts of speech and good grammar in general are more important now than ever. I want my son to know good writing, not just creative writing, but good academic writing. Good grammar goes with that. The parts of speech are the foundational parts to deeper grammar concept I don't fully understand yet.

 

I do think those that can communicate well and appear well-educated will stand out in the future. Communication, written and oral, are important no matter what field a person chooses. Parts of speech are part of that, there is so much more IMO. I also think it becomes an ingrained habit, not only in a person's own writing, but in how they perceive other written work.

[lauracolumbus]

I, too, am a paid writer (non-fiction) who had terrible training in grammar. I can see a world of difference in my writing since studying grammar w/my kids. It helps to know the parts of speech when teaching our kids, e.g., you can't say "between you and I" because you need an objective pronoun. I also realize now why I had a hard time studying foreign languages. The teacher would say something like predicate nominative, and I had no idea what it meant in English and therefore couldn't understand what that meant in French. (I can't remember if predicate nominative is even part of French, but hopefully you still see my point).

 

Laura

[PeterPan]

You'll need to know grammar when you study a foreign language, so in just a few years it's going to be very useful to them. In the meantime, make it fun.

[Crimson Wife]

Plenty of grammar mistakes arise when the author doesn't know when to use adjectives vs. adverbs, or subject pronouns vs. object pronouns.

[EKS]

The parts of speech are just the first baby step on the road to learning grammar. I teach grammar so that I can discuss language with my children. If they don't know grammar, they can't know *why* something in their writing is wrong or awkward or whatever. The reason would be, "Because it is. Just trust me."

 

So why learn the parts of speech specifically? I don't see how one could teach the rest of grammar without the student knowing the parts of speech.

[vonfirmath]

You'll need to know grammar when you study a foreign language, so in just a few years it's going to be very useful to them. In the meantime, make it fun.

 

 

Honestly, I learned my grammar when I learned Spanish (my foreign language). It never clicked before that.

[Peplophoros]

OP, the sentence you posted would be recognized by anyone as wrong. There are many more situations in which the correct answer is not terribly clear, but becomes so with knowledge of grammar. The use of I/me, for instance, or how about this: The group of puppies and kittens are always running. Are? is? How would you know what the subject is if you didn't understand prepositional phrases and their objects?

 

As a college professor, I see many, many mistakes in my students' writing, and I teach in an excellent university in the Honors Program. Poor writing reflects badly on them and will lower their grades.

[Amethyst]

To be able to perform well on standardized tests.

[JuanitaL]

So you can catch somebody cheating at Scrabble. I once caught somebody trying to put a -d on the end of a noun. I had to call her out.

[Myra]

Grammar gives you the vocabulary and skills to understand the written word. Like in Math, you need to know the terminology along with the computation skills so that you can communicate. " Find the product of the integers seven raised to the third power and negative eight" would be impossible without the terminology and basic skill set. The same goes with advanced writing skills. "In your essay assignment, check to see that all the verb and subjects match in tense and number" requires basic grammar terminology and skills. I know that as part of my son's college freshman seminar class, they are required to "peer edit" assignments and must have the basic grammar skills down pat to communicate.

 

Myra

[AK_Mom4]

Knowing your parts of speech certainly helps with self-editing your writing. DD11 yesterday was trying to decide if a sentence was a fragment or not. I reminded her to cross it the prepositional phrases, then identify the subject and verb pieces. When she did that, she was able to see that the verb was missing.

 

Experienced writers can do this type of correction "on the fly" because it "looks wrong", but knowing your grammar parts really speeds up the process.