R&S grammer help

[Melissa in Australia]

hi,

I am really struggling teaching R&S grammar 7. I am going through this book with my 14 year old. he started grammar at age 10 ( when I started homeschooling) at book 3 and has worked his way up to 7. we are finding it hard going.

My question is; would we have enough grammar if we stopped at the end of this book, and just moved onto a writing program, like writing strands?

 

or will this be admitting defeat, and failing in my responsibility as a homeschooling mum?

 

He already has more grammer knowelage than most Australians.

[harrypmgaga]

This is going to be off-topic but where did you order Rod and Staff from in Australia? Sorry, but I have a daughter in Year 2 (moving into Year 3) and a son in Year 7 (moving into Year 8) and would like to know where I can purchase this curriculum.

 

Other than that, sorry, but I can't help with your question as I have no experience with the curriculum. :(

[txchick]

Personally say do what you need to for his College or future. Sounds like a break would be nice.

you can pick up Grammar again next year with the same series or do a year with Analytical Grammar. I'd say start writing...its SOOOO important for college!

 

I also have a 14 year old....if we start R*S grammar...we'd have to start in the 7th grade -10th grade book and that would take our last 4 years...but it would be plenty. Im also looking at BJU for him.... it looks very good on the writing portions...but again...we'd have to start in gr 7, I think.

 

Donna(with my struggling writers!)

[Melissa in Australia]

This is going to be off-topic but where did you order Rod and Staff from in Australia? Sorry, but I have a daughter in Year 2 (moving into Year 3) and a son in Year 7 (moving into Year 8) and would like to know where I can purchase this curriculum.

 

Other than that, sorry, but I can't help with your question as I have no experience with the curriculum. :(

you can buy it from LEM- Light Educational Ministries. they are in Canberra.:001_smile:

[Christine]

hi,

I am really struggling teaching R&S grammar 7. I am going through this book with my 14 year old. he started grammar at age 10 ( when I started homeschooling) at book 3 and has worked his way up to 7. we are finding it hard going.

My question is; would we have enough grammar if we stopped at the end of this book, and just moved onto a writing program, like writing strands?

 

or will this be admitting defeat, and failing in my responsibility as a homeschooling mum?

 

He already has more grammer knowelage than most Australians.

 

Honestly, I think you could stop at the end of 7 (shhhh! don't tell anyone I said that!)

 

My grammar was sadly insufficient for college but I tested well enough to go into regular classes. I requested a remedial class, (fought for it really) and learned a lot there. . .but NOTHING compared to what I've learned from R & S.

 

Unless your child is going into the English field, I would think they would do just fine.

 

Writing is terribly important; it would be wise to spend a good amount of time on it.

 

You could always use book 8 and work through it very slowly. (Two lessons a week?)

[Hoggirl]

Is it taking too much time? Or are the concepts too difficult? I reduce the workload in R&S quite a bit. We do the oral review (in the TM) and the review lessons at the end of each lesson (also orally) to start our day. Ds then reads the lesson on his own. If there is an accompanying worksheet, he does that. Those worksheets really reduce the amount of writing necessary. If there is not a worksheet (or even sometimes if there is) AND some of the exercises in the book require diagramming, we do about 6 sentence diagrams and call it a day. I cannot imagine doing every exercise they suggest. That would be hard going for us, too!

[Beth in Central TX]

I agree with Christine that you could stop at R&S Grammar 7, and I know many people that do. I'm still going to go through R&S Grammar 8, but I have decided to not to do R&S 9/10 in high school because our focus at that point will be literature and writing. FWIW...

[Ellie]

there's isn't a rule somewhere that says homeschooling mums who don't finish R&S English are failures :-)

 

I say break out the Writing Strands and call it a day.:D

[Melissa in Australia]

thankyou everyone for your help. :001_smile::001_smile:

 

Hoggirl. it is hard going because I don't have much of a clue what I am trying to teach. way out of my depth. my son is finding the book extremely boring. he is frustrated with my teaching it ( or should I say muddling through) he hates the old fashioned sentences. He is a struggling writer, but a whiz at math/ science

he wants to be an engineer.

thank you again;)

[anissarobert]

My 9th grade dd is doing 8th R & S this year. I was looking at the 9th/10th books at a curriculum fair, and I was impressed with how much writing they do. It seemed to me that the grammar portions were review. (Probably because 7/8 cover every grammar concept known to English.)

[H.S. Burrow]

Well...I personally believe that you need to master grammar to be a good writer. I don't believe you can learn to write well if you don't know proper sentence structure and grammar. I was in honors English classes in highschool and it was very difficult to write papers on a college level...I can only imagine how difficult it would have been without extensive grammar. R&S is very much like the program that we used in our honors English at my high school.

I know that R&S is kinda boring with the old fashioned sentences. We skip some of those....esp the "thee", "thou", etc...I mean, who talks like that??;) They give tons of exercises, so we do the oral review and class practice and half of the written exercises. We do the review exercises only if that is an area that my kidlets are struggling with. We will sometimes substitute the worksheet for the written exercises. I also do not give quizzes as suggested in the Teacher's manual......I don't think my kids need it and that it is overkill and the quizzes were designed for the classroom environment.

I found with my DD (almost 14) that I needed to stop "teaching" it and let her read the lesson and work the exercises. If she didn't understand the lesson then we would work through the class practice together.

Here's a link to a website that *really* helps with diagramming sentences: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams/diagrams.htm scroll down and click on the "enter" button. It is a power point presentation of diagrammed sentences. Their sentences are not quite as boring as R&S.;)

I don't know what is expected to earn a degree in engineering in Australia, but I know what is required for the universities that we are looking at for my kidlets....and they will be required to have several hours of English -- both grammar and composition.

I would suggest that you find out about the university requirements and base your final decision on what he will be expected to know at the time of enrollment.

[Melissa in Australia]

I don't know what is expected to earn a degree in engineering in Australia, but I know what is required for the universities that we are looking at for my kidlets....and they will be required to have several hours of English -- both grammar and composition.

 

.

I am not sure exactly what is meant by this statement.

 

what is several hours of English?

 

is it how many hours you study English?

 

thank you for the link. He actually enjoys all the diagramming

 

 

 

I am not aware that we have any system like that here in Australia where you have to record how many hours you study something for.

I think the ways of getting into university here is to either be a mature age student, complete high school at a school/ or by correspondence and get an entrance certificate, do a tafe course, or inrole in some Open University courses while in High school.

 

 

thank you

[H.S. Burrow]

I am not sure exactly what is meant by this statement.

 

what is several hours of English?

 

is it how many hours you study English?

 

thank you for the link. He actually enjoys all the diagramming

 

 

 

I am not aware that we have any system like that here in Australia where you have to record how many hours you study something for.

I think the ways of getting into university here is to either be a mature age student, complete high school at a school/ or by correspondence and get an entrance certificate, do a tafe course, or inrole in some Open University courses while in High school.

 

 

thank you

 

I'm sorry...I forgot there might be other differences in the university systems.

 

The hours refer to college credit hours....not hours you homeschool. Here, for engineering, students are required to have 3 credit hours of communication (includes intensive writing) and 3 credit hours of English (includes intensive grammar & writing). Each college courses here meets for 3 hours per week for one semester (Aug - Dec or Jan - May). I hope this helps clear up any misunderstanding.

 

FWIW we do not track the number of hours we spend on our lessons. *My* only requirement of my kids is that the book be finished at the end of our school year or that they have proven mastery of it.

 

Hope this helps you out some.:)

[Melissa in Australia]

thank you

:001_smile::thumbup1:

[Truman School]

Honestly I'd perhaps speak to some students that have gone to the university your son is interested in. My oldest who went through public school and was not particularly strong in grammar or English has managed to achieve A's in all of the first two year's English classes in his Computer Science discipline at a high ranked state university.

 

I'm using Rod and Staff 7 this year with my 9th grade dd and I know that it is going much deeper than anything my ds learned in public highschool.

 

If you are both struggling I would definitely take a break and then maybe talk to a few who know what's required in your area. My dh is an engineer and couldn't diagram a sentence to save his life....lol