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Has anyone used Killgallon's "Paragraphs for Elementary" yet?


kirstenhill
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Here it is: http://www.heinemann.com/products/E04794.aspx

 

I'm curious about it.  I see that it has a 2014 copyright, so I wasn't sure if it came out earlier this year or just recently.   Last year when DD was in 4th was the first year we really used a formal writing program (CAP W & R books 1 and 2).  I am thinking about books 3 & 4 of that series for her next year, but she also desperately needs to learn something about paragraphs.  Right now, pretty much everything she writes ends up in one huge, long block of text.  When I suggested that she break things down into paragraphs (and even reminded her about the definition of a paragraph), she pretty much looked at me like I had two heads and kept on doing the same thing.

 

I looked at a couple of scholastic e-books about paragraph construction and even tried a few pages from one of them with her and it was not a hit.  So I am looking for something else that will fit the bill of teaching DD how to break her writing down into smaller chunks.

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Ahh... that explains why I couldn't find it when I tried to get it at Rainbow Resource. I saw it at amazon but wanted to try RR because I needed the $50 free shipping. I didn't realize it was new. I plan to use it next year with W&R. I think it will be a nice compliment. Guess I'll be getting it from Amazon.

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We're about 1/3 through Paragraphs for Elementary. We do it orally/discussion style. It is a nice follow-up to a year spent on IEW (via CC Essentials) and Essentials of the English Language; she can give me the proper name for each of the 'tools' Killgallon introduces in the text, and we diagram a few of the sentences each reading just for fun.

 

I have only one complaint about Paragraphs for Elementary (actually, I love the book - complaint is too strong a word). My daughter has read many (most?) of the source texts, so she is tempted to tell me everything that was happening in the story leading up to that paragraph and what happened next. She loves that the selections are drawn from good-quality children's literature, but it can be a little distracting for her (she possesses both an incredible memory for detail AND the need to chatter away about everything she's ever read). So my complaint is a petty one and, I suppose, is a good problem to have. It just takes a lot of effort to keep my little book-lover on task as we work through Paragraphs. I always anticipate we'll cover more ground in each sitting than we do, which is fine as we're using it just for a brain-stretching, light-hearted celebration of what makes our favorite books so darn lovely to read.

 

I purchased my copy through Amazon.

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Has anyone used Story Grammar for Elementary? My oldest has been working with the Killgallon middle school sentence composing and he's going to continue into paragraphs. He loves it. I wanted to get Elementary for my younger ds when he was ready. When I look at samples though, I get the feeling that Story Grammar is basically a repeat of Sentence Composing. 

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I've used Story Grammar and Grammar for Middle School. All the Killgallon books except for the new paragraph ones appear pretty similar in terms of their exercises. The main differences seem to be whether the book uses the proper grammatical terminology and the specific model sentences.

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I've used Story Grammar and Grammar for Middle School. All the Killgallon books except for the new paragraph ones appear pretty similar in terms of their exercises. The main differences seem to be whether the book uses the proper grammatical terminology and the specific model sentences.

 

Okay. I meant in terms of their selections. From some samples I looked at it seemed Story Grammar was using the exact same passages as Sentence Composing. I could be wrong, but it seemed that much more closely related. 

 

I think I'll just skip the Story Grammar books, and stick with using the Sentence and Paragraph books.

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Okay. I meant in terms of their selections. From some samples I looked at it seemed Story Grammar was using the exact same passages as Sentence Composing. I could be wrong, but it seemed that much more closely related.

 

I think I'll just skip the Story Grammar books, and stick with using the Sentence and Paragraph books.

From what I have read for middle school the grammar book is better and more similar to elementary sentence composing. There is a thread somewhere.

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  • 1 month later...

In deciding between, Story Grammar for Elementary and Sentence Composing in elementary which would you say has the strongest teacher support/answers?

 

Story Grammar seems to have online support/guide... but on amazon I don't see them describing the same options for Sentence Composing... is this true?

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