Most repetitious grammar?

[Tenaj]

My ds11 is just not getting grammar. He's done R&S 3 and 4 (about 3/4 of the way through) and he's just not getting it. He can (finally) most of the time get the subject and verb(s) of a sentence but even that is a bit wobbly. Adjectives, Adverbs, DO's are just not there. He can't recognize that a noun cannot be an adjective, verb or adverb.

 

So, what are the programs out there that are repetitious in drilling the basics? He's a very "workbooky" kind of a guy but I'm not sure I'm going to find anything that fits the bill for that. He hates the oral drills and reviews in R&S. We did use CLE LA a few years ago (I think it was for third grade) and the spiral didn't really suit him either.

 

I like diagramming and it seems like diagramming would help him because he is definitely a visual learner but it seems to scramble him up more than help.

 

Any ideas? Do I start him way back in an earlier grade with a different curriculum to remediate this? Just keep plugging along and hope that something clicks when we start R&S 5?

[redsquirrel]

I would try FLL 3 and then 4. I think it has the memorizing of definitions and the diagramming is starts very basic and then builds. It is also scripted so it is easy to teach. The pages in the workbook are clean and there is a lot of space.

 

My older son really likes grammar. He started with FLL 1-4 and then we moved to R&S. He still pines for a PHP grammar program because R&S hasn't been as clear or easy to use as FLL.

[Plink]

BJU?

 

It is a great fit for my struggling DD. The video portion is very thorough, the workbooks are great, and the basics are reviewed on a regular basis. I think the video is the most important part for her. The silly songs and funny characters are able to hold her attention, leading to longer lessons and a lot more information than I can review with her daily.

[EKS]

Hake Grammar uses the Saxon method of incremental development and continual review. So things are reviewed daily for weeks. And they're presented again the next year and reviewed even more. Not overly inspiring, but it does get the job done.

[Spy Car]

Seriously, instead of drilling a kid who hates drill and isn't thriving with that sort of learning, why not try a different approach?

 

I suggest Michael Clay Thompson (MCT). It is a joy to use, and makes understanding things like parts of speech a very approachable. Learning grammar does not have to be an odious and boring endeavor.

 

Bill

 

ETA: Or try the free downloadable "Grammarland." It is great fun and is all about parts of speech

[jewellsmommy]

Check out Growing With Grammar. It repeats the same concepts each year. It teaches diagramming. It includes review of older concepts with each new concept taught. Plus, there are whole review lessons (at the end of each chapter), and you can purchase tests that can serve as additional reviews.

 

 

 

 

My ds11 is just not getting grammar. He's done R&S 3 and 4 (about 3/4 of the way through) and he's just not getting it. He can (finally) most of the time get the subject and verb(s) of a sentence but even that is a bit wobbly. Adjectives, Adverbs, DO's are just not there. He can't recognize that a noun cannot be an adjective, verb or adverb.

 

So, what are the programs out there that are repetitious in drilling the basics? He's a very "workbooky" kind of a guy but I'm not sure I'm going to find anything that fits the bill for that. He hates the oral drills and reviews in R&S. We did use CLE LA a few years ago (I think it was for third grade) and the spiral didn't really suit him either.

 

I like diagramming and it seems like diagramming would help him because he is definitely a visual learner but it seems to scramble him up more than help.

 

Any ideas? Do I start him way back in an earlier grade with a different curriculum to remediate this? Just keep plugging along and hope that something clicks when we start R&S 5?

[5LittleMonkeys]

I agree with Bill. Before I'd switch programs I'd try a different appraoch to get him to understand what adjectives, adverbs, and direct objects look like in a sentence. Have you tried any building excercises with him? Many times a dc just can't "see" the function of words when it's someone else's sentence. When they construct the sentence on their own it is much more relevant.

 

Start with a simple sentence of his choice written on a whiteboard, and then build it into a complex sentence by using the parts of speech he is having trouble with. Use different colores for the different parts of speech and draw arrows to the words and their modifiers.

 

If however, you do want something that has the dc going over all parts of speech in every single sentence then look at AG. It has the student parsing every part of speech, phrase and clause in every single sentence of ever single excercise. By the end of the program they are doing A LOT to each sentence... including diagramming.

[EKS]

Seriously, instead of drilling a kid who hates drill and isn't thriving with that sort of learning, why not try a different approach?

 

I suggest Michael Clay Thompson (MCT). It is a joy to use, and makes understanding things like parts of speech a very approachable. Learning grammar does not have to be an odious and boring endeavor.

 

Bill

 

 

I agree with this.

 

In fact, I think that alternating MCT with Hake is an extremely powerful approach. MCT gives the big picture and Hake fills in the details and cements them.

[Kuovonne]

He can (finally) most of the time get the subject and verb(s) of a sentence but even that is a bit wobbly. Adjectives, Adverbs, DO's are just not there. He can't recognize that a noun cannot be an adjective, verb or adverb.

 

Actually some words that we normally think of as nouns can act as adjectives, verbs, and adverbs.

 

Think about 'fish':

noun: He caught a fish.

verb: I will fish for trout.

 

Think about 'tomorrow':

noun: My favorite day is tomorrow.

adverb: I will do it tomorrow.

 

Think about 'hair'.

noun: She has long hair.

adjective: Give me the hair brush.

 

 

How about KISS Grammar? It is a series of free downloadable workbooks with lots of practice sentences. I makes kids think about the sentences rather than memorizing definitions or finding patterns.

 

The KISS Grammer web site can be difficult to navigate. Just start with the level one workbook for his reading level. If he struggles with that, try the level one workbook for a younger grade.

[kristi26]

What about listening to Grammarland on Librivox and doing the free worksheets that someone made for it? You can google it and find it...

 

We also do Daily Grammar which is free here: http://www.dailygrammar.com/archive.html

 

Some people love KISS, though so far, my DC have not...

[Tenaj]

Actually some words that we normally think of as nouns can act as adjectives, verbs, and adverbs.

 

Think about 'fish':

noun: He caught a fish.

verb: I will fish for trout.

 

Think about 'tomorrow':

noun: My favorite day is tomorrow.

adverb: I will do it tomorrow.

 

Think about 'hair'.

noun: She has long hair.

adjective: Give me the hair brush.

 

 

How about KISS Grammar? It is a series of free downloadable workbooks with lots of practice sentences. I makes kids think about the sentences rather than memorizing definitions or finding patterns.

 

The KISS Grammer web site can be difficult to navigate. Just start with the level one workbook for his reading level. If he struggles with that, try the level one workbook for a younger grade.

 

 

I've looked at KISS over and over because I like the price :) but the website gives me an instant headache. I'll have to try it again.

 

I understand the examples you gave above and I'm very sympathetic in those situations. I get frustrated with sentences like the one today, "A robin was busily feeding her babies". He diagrammed the subject correctly and then showed the verb as "was busily" with "feeding", "babies" and "her" as adverbs underneath.

[Tenaj]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I had considered MCT just because, from what I understand, it is so different but he's such a workbooky kid that I was afraid it would drive him crazy. I will take another look.

 

I had also considered Hake but since Saxon was a complete and utter failure with the same kid I was afraid of total revolt if he saw it come into the house :) Those covers look a bit too similar.

 

He used Growing with Grammar in first and second grade then I tried to get away from the consumable workbooks and that's when we moved to R&S because I had it on my shelf. I probably should have just stuck with it because he really liked it back then.

 

Hmmm . . . maybe I'll just use Grammarland the rest of this year and worry about next year later.

[kristi26]

We are starting our year with Grammarland next year because I think it'll be a fun way to 1. Review with the older kids and 2. Introduce new concepts to the younger kid. :)

[Chelli]

 

I agree with this.

 

In fact, I think that alternating MCT with Hake is an extremely powerful approach. MCT gives the big picture and Hake fills in the details and cements them.

 

 

Not to hijack, but how do you do that? Alternate both within the same year or do MCT one year and Hake the next?

 

We are using MCT right now and dd loves it, but I want to slow her down a bit before heading into the other levels.

[EKS]

Not to hijack, but how do you do that? Alternate both within the same year or do MCT one year and Hake the next?

 

 

This has been our sequence: Island, Town, Hake 5, Voyage, Hake 8. We did Island in 2nd grade, Town in 3rd, Hake 5 in 4th, Voyage at the beginning of this year (quickly and without the practice book), and then Hake 8 currently.

 

I decided to add Hake after my son bombed (relatively speaking) the punctuation and capitalization parts of his standardized test taken after Town. After doing Hake for a year, his scores jumped 25 percentile points and were among the strongest scores of that testing session. I also saw a corresponding improvement in his writing.

[Homemama2]

My ds was the same way. We did RS 3 and I felt like he learned nothing. So we went to Abeka grade 4. I'm not an Abeka fan, but it does drill until they finally learn it. He did ok with Abeka, no A's, but ok. This year (5th) we are using rod and staff grade 4. This is def. a step up from Abeka grade 4. He's doing great. I love the look of MCT , but it would not work with this ds.

[Lori D.]

I'll just suggest that maybe the way to "nail" parts of speech is not through MORE drill of the same type, but trying a different grammar approach -- maybe just do some supplements to finish out the year?

 

Supplement ideas:

- Mad Libs (super practice for parts of speech!)

- Grammar Ad Libs (like Mad Libs, but is a bit more directed practice)

- Schoolhouse Rock: Grammar (list of videos)

- grammar games online:

Grammar Gorillas

Harcourt School Publishers: Grammar Practice Park

Scholastic: Clean Up Your Grammar

Edu-Pace: Grammar Blast (quizzes)

 

 

 

Here are some books to look for at the library, though they are for grades K-3, so they may be too young:

- Noun Hounds and Other Great Grammar Games (by Lorraine Egan)

- A Mink, A Fink, a Skating Rink: What is a Noun? (by Brian Cleary)

- A Lime, A Mime, a Pool of Slime: More About Nouns (by Brian Cleary)

- To Root, to Toot, to Parachute: What is a Verb? (by Brian Cleary)

- Slide, Slurp, Scratch and Burp: More About Verbs (by Brian Cleary)

- Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: What is an Adjective? (by Brian Cleary)

- Dearly, Nearly, Insincerely: What is an Adverb? (by Brian Cleary)

- I and You and Don't Forget Who: What is a Pronoun? (by Brian Cleary)

- Under, Over, By the Clover: What is a Preposition? (by Brian Cleary)

 

 

 

 

Another option is Winston Grammar, which has the student use cards, each with clues, to help identify parts of speech, and lay the cards next to the word in the sentence that each matches. Winston is both visual and hands-on, which can help students who find Grammar to be abstract.

 

BEST of luck! Warmly, Lori D.

[SunnyDays]

 

 

Not to hijack, but how do you do that? Alternate both within the same year or do MCT one year and Hake the next?

 

We are using MCT right now and dd loves it, but I want to slow her down a bit before heading into the other levels.

 

We also use this combo, but we are using both in the same year. It just takes some creative spacing! We read Grammar Town early in the year, then started the rest of MCT plus Hake. We currently are doing 2 Practice Town sentences per day, 2-3 lessons of Hake per week (which means it may take longer than one school year, fine because we'll only do 5 and then 7 or 8), 1-2 CE lessons per week, and we'll do Paragraph Town this spring.

 

I think quite a few Hive members use MCT plus something else.

 

 

[WishboneDawn]

 

 

I've looked at KISS over and over because I like the price :) but the website gives me an instant headache. I'll have to try it again.

 

I understand the examples you gave above and I'm very sympathetic in those situations. I get frustrated with sentences like the one today, "A robin was busily feeding her babies". He diagrammed the subject correctly and then showed the verb as "was busily" with "feeding", "babies" and "her" as adverbs underneath.

 

 

Sounds like a job for MCT. My son is using KISS right now but we'll also be going through Grammar Voyage. It was a huge help for my daughter when we did it and it and KISS gave her a real foundation for how to think about and reason through grammar.

[Woodland Mist Academy]

In fact, I think that alternating MCT with Hake is an extremely powerful approach. MCT gives the big picture and Hake fills in the details and cements them.

 

So true.

 

We are currently using MCT Level 4 and Hake 7.

 

FWIW, my daughter hated Saxon math. I was afraid Hake would take us down the same path, but it's gone surprising well. (She isn't thrilled with it, but she doesn't hate it like she did Saxon math.)

 

We had so much fun with Grammar Land!

[Tenaj]

So, if I decide to go with MCT, where do I start? I've been to that site a few times, and even looked at it briefly at our convention last year but was confused about where to start and what I needed.

[KellyMama]

We've used a combo of GWG and MCT this year - hands down fabulous combo for my 9yo 3rd grade DS. We started with GWG and added in Sentence Island after a few months of school. He loved it so much he begged me to buy him more 'Mud books' so now we're 2/3 way through the literature trilogy. Last quarter we introduced Building Language and whenever we finish that, I've got Music of the Hemispheres on the shelf.

 

We typically do GWG 4 x a week and read our MCT book once a week. The literature books are in addition because they're not really 'grammar' so we read aloud (or he often reads ahead!) whenever we have time. We also do Daily Grams - he asked to do it because his sisters do it. It takes all of 5 minutes but I've liked the no fuss drill-style for him.

[mrsrevmeg]

 

I think Shurley is one of the best grammar programs I have seen. It is very repetitious. If you do the jingles on a regular basis, he should get the different parts of speech pretty easily. My oldest son only did two years of Shurley, but I still have him ask himself questions that refer back to the Shurley method whe he gets stumped on something.

[Hunter]

I really like Sentence Family.

 

I've used library books.

 

Fold a piece of paper into columns and write words that are interesting to him in the correct columns.

 

Have him recopy the final draft of some of his own writing with different parts of speech in different colors.

 

But mostly what we do is this. We do a lot of sentence compositions with spelling words. We start composing sentences with just a subject and verb. Then we add in complements and modifiers. I still have not found a core text that will move through sentence compositions they way I want to, though, and I've been :banghead: :willy_nilly: looking for one for awhile. I don't use workbooks, but just teach the grammar necessary for the writing stage the student is at. If the student is still composing 2 word sentences then we only need to cover nouns and verbs. Then we add either adjectives or direct objects ( more nouns). We stay stuck at nouns, verbs and adjectives for awhile. I use How to Tutor and Alpha-Phonics for handwriting and phonics remediation, and sentences compositions are based on what the student can write in cursive and spell correctly, after completing the AP copywork.

[WishboneDawn]

So, if I decide to go with MCT, where do I start? I've been to that site a few times, and even looked at it briefly at our convention last year but was confused about where to start and what I needed.

 

 

I used Grammar Voyage when my daughter was that age. It gives a kid a great foundation and understanding. She used Jensen's Punctutation the same year and the two really complemented each other as well.

[sbgrace]

You might look at Daily Grammar Practice.

 

Here are links to the scope and sequence for various grade levels with samples http://www.dgppublis...om/contents.htm

 

I've never seen anything like it. It seems ideal for retention. I did some searches last night and, while it doesn't seem widely known, what I gathered is that it is challenging at the various grade levels. I saw that people tended to work lower than actual grade.

[Tenaj]

You might look at Daily Grammar Practice.

 

Here are links to the scope and sequence for various grade levels with samples http://www.dgppublis...om/contents.htm

 

I've never seen anything like it. It seems ideal for retention. I did some searches last night and, while it doesn't seem widely known, what I gathered is that it is challenging at the various grade levels. I saw that people tended to work lower than actual grade.

 

 

I actually have three levels of this sitting on my shelf. There is only one sentence they work with per week, which for my son, didn't provide him with enough repetition to really cement anything. I have been thinking of designing my own course which would be very similar to DPG but would be three or four sentences a week (one a day). That would give him constant repetition.

[boscopup]

KISS certainly has tons of practice, and it's done in a way that really cements those parts of speech. The direct link to the workbooks page is:

 

http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/PBooks/index.htm

 

You would want Level 1, pick any grade - 3 or 6. They teach the same material. Grade 3 uses Beatrix Potter. Grade 6 uses books a 6th grader would read. You just download the workbook and the answer key (AK).

 

3rd grade workbook

3rd grade answer key

6th grade workbook

6th grade answer key

 

I also like the MCT idea, but hey, KISS is free to try. :) It sounds like you aren't really wanting more repetition necessarily, as R&S has tons of repetition, but maybe you're needing a different presentation that still includes repetition. KISS will certainly give you that. You learn one concept, work with a bunch of sentences, then learn another concept and find BOTH concepts in a bunch of sentences, etc.

[Susie in MS]

I am beside myself that I actually agree with Spy Car! (Glad to find common ground!)

 

My suggestions to look into would be Grammarland (mentioned) and the free download wkshts (1 per chapter, so not many), and

 

Learning Language Arts Through Literature (which gets a bad wrap it doesn't deserve) .

 

These will be far different from drill, drill, drill. I know my dd shuts down big time when I even think of trying anything like that.

[Tenaj]

I am beside myself that I actually agree with Spy Car! (Glad to find common ground!)

 

My suggestions to look into would be Grammarland (mentioned) and the free download wkshts (1 per chapter, so not many), and

 

Learning Language Arts Through Literature (which gets a bad wrap it doesn't deserve) .

 

These will be far different from drill, drill, drill. I know my dd shuts down big time when I even think of trying anything like that.

 

 

I had been mulling over LLATL for the past few days - hmmmm . . .

[EmilyGF]

I'm going to put in another plug for KISS. Just download the appropriate grade level 1 workbook and answer key. Then, close the website!

 

Then, do one page at a time. Part of the idea is to always use what you know, so you begin by underlining subjects and verbs. Then, you add on complements. I don't know what comes next; we're only to lesson 17 in grade 2, but it'll ad onto what we're already doing.

 

Emily

[DragonFaerie]

Check out Growing With Grammar. It repeats the same concepts each year. It teaches diagramming. It includes review of older concepts with each new concept taught. Plus, there are whole review lessons (at the end of each chapter), and you can purchase tests that can serve as additional reviews.

 

This is what we use for my DS. He is not grammar-oriented AT ALL, but he does well with this. I like that it has continual review but not so much that it's boring and repetitive. Also, in the workbook, each section is notated with which lesson the material comes from, so if he has a problem, I can just point him back to the appropriate lesson to look it over again. There is also a good amount of diagramming, which DS loves. He's my builder and when I pointed out that writing was like taking a pile of words and "building" sentence with them and that diagrams are like the blue prints, he thought that was really cool. :)

 

 

I understand the examples you gave above and I'm very sympathetic in those situations. I get frustrated with sentences like the one today, "A robin was busily feeding her babies". He diagrammed the subject correctly and then showed the verb as "was busily" with "feeding", "babies" and "her" as adverbs underneath.

 

I have a little trick I use with DS. Obviously this doesn't work with everything, but it helps in a lot of cases. I tell him to do whatever he is calling the verb. In your example, I would say, "Okay, you say the verb is 'busily'. Please show me how to 'busily.' I don't know how to do that." He, of course, starts laughing because you can't "busily." And if he were to mimic the 'feeding' part, I would point out, "That looks like 'feeding' to me. I'd like to see how to 'busily.'"

[Alessandra]

This won't solve all your problems, but they are fun -- Ruth Heller's witty, illustrated books on parts of speech:

 

http://www.amazon.co...rld of language

 

From wikipedia

• World of Language - a series on parts of speech
  
  • A Cache of Jewels and Other Collective Nouns (1987)
    
  • Kites Sail High: A Book About Verbs (1988)
    
  • Many Luscious Lollipops: A Book About Adjectives (1989)
    
  • Merry-Go- Round: A Book About Nouns (1990)
    
  • Up, Up and Away: A Book About Adverbs (1991)
    
  • Behind the Mask: A Book About Prepositions (1995)
    
  • Mine, All Mine: A Book about Pronouns (1997)
    
  • Fantastic! Wow! And Unreal! A Book about Interjections and Conjunctions (1998)
    

   

   

 

We have all of these, Dd loves them and I've seen her light up with understanding as she reads these. You can find them in libraries and used book sales as well as at Amazon.

• 
   
  

 

[Kendall]

I've copied the following from another post I wrote. This is how I solved the problems you talked about. I probably haven't explained it thoroughly, but it will give you an idea. And it is free:). And you could do this with whatever grammar program you already have.

 

I take a sentence from their Rod and Staff book or from another book, or I make one up. I dictate it. They write it down (sometimes I write it down for them on two pieces of scratch paper). I have them underline the subject once and the verb twice. Then we focus on a part of speech. Lately that has been the noun. I have them tell me the first noun. Then I ask the following questions about it

Is it common or proper?

What is the number (singular or plural)?

What is the gender?

What is the case? Nominative , Objective, or Possessive? And why? (Because it is the subject of the sentence because it is a predicate noun and renames the subject, because it Is the object of a transitive verb, because it is the indirect object, because it is the object of the preposition _____, because it answer’s the question whose and modifies _________)

 

As we do that for each noun, we obviously cover more than nouns. I also have them diagram at least parts of the sentence.

I look at whatever Rod and Staff lesson they are on and pull from that with regard to the types of sentences and the parts of speech that I ask about. They retain so much more from this than from just working through exercises. At first I have to tell them the answers. But now a few months later they can always answer all but case correctly and often case as well. We are now moving to pronouns. I ask similar questions and also do all of the nouns if there is time. I will later add verbs(tense, mood, etc) adjectives, adverbs, adding in parts of speech as we cover them in R & S. Because of the way I do it, they often know much of it when we get to that part of speech in the book. This also helps(or will) with Latin cases.

 

I use the Rod and Staff book as a guide, sometimes teaching it first when it does not fit in with the above exercise. My children like doing this, much better than the review and oral drills (we haven't done those since we started this).

 

HTH,

Kendall