madteaparty Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I'm not looking to debate the merits of this. There's a number of uber threads on the matter. We read, aloud and indipendently and take literature classes, and study multiple foreign languages. He writes well with astonishingly few mistakes, considering. I speak a few foreign languages myself but do not know what a predicate is and neither am I going to teach it if it can be helped. (I think I just made a grammar mistake in this very sentence!). My specific question is, do you think your child was disadvantaged when it came to standardized testing? I mean are there pure grammar questions one has to worry about? That would not be covered by going through a prep book? This would cause me to reconsider. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SA Homeschooler Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I completely agree with you!! I really don't like the idea of teaching grammar perse. Now, my son is only 15 so I don't know how this plays out but for now, we have learned grammar through editing, sentence combining and imitation. My kiddo is a great writer without ever having diagrammed a sentence. He scored exceedingly well on his Stanford Achievement Test last year so I presume this approach has not hampered his testing. Edited to add: The two grammar programs listed on my signature line teach through sentence combining and imitation. We used the Critical Thinking Co.'s Language Mechanic for the editing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErinE Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I think regentrude is someone who didn't explicitly teach grammar. Perhaps ask her? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjbucks1 Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I know there are many people who do not teach grammar explicitly, so perhaps they will be able to give you better insight. I have taught my children grammar, my oldest one through 8th grade, and he tells be the ACT asks questions just like Rod and Staff (the grammar program we used). He scored a 36 on the English portion of the ACT this year. Hopefully someone who has not taught grammar can give you their perspective as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I did not teach grammar explicitly in English. The only grammar instruction was in their foreign language studies. My DD did very well on standardized tests ( SAT, ACT, English SAT2.) There were never any explicit grammar questions that required identification of parts of speech or listing of rules. All grammar questions are language use questions, where you need to identify grammatical mistakes or find sentence improvements. We did some test prep. Any test prep book lists, and gives examples for, the typical types of mistakes they will put on the tests: subject-verb agreement, mixed tenses, stuff like this - so you know what to watch out for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbgrace Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I completely agree with you!! I really don't like the idea of teaching grammar perse. Now, my son is only 15 so I don't know how this plays out but for now, we have learned grammar through editing, sentence combining and imitation. My kiddo is a great writer without ever having diagrammed a sentence. He scored exceedingly well on his Stanford Achievement Test last year so I presume this approach has not hampered his testing. Edited to add: The two grammar programs listed on my signature line teach through sentence combining and imitation. We used the Critical Thinking Co.'s Language Mechanic for the editing. Who authored Grammar Made Easy? I'm interested in a sentence combining approach. Is this the resource that takes that angle? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8filltheheart Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 College Board put up samples of the new SAT style questions. You could look over them and see what is covered. Students are never expected to label parts of speech. They are expected to apply the proper rules of grammar. Concepts that a student should be familiar with are parallel construction, subject/verb agreement, etc. https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sample-questions/writing-language Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I never learned explicit English grammar, and while there was some grammar in my foreign language instruction the majority was just immersion. I was a voracious reader, lots of high quality literature. I had perfect scores on the English sections of both the SAT and ACT in high school. I still don't know what a predicate is... When you're getting ready for testing, see how your child does on practice tests and go from there. If there is something grammatical tripping him up you can address it as needed. In the meantime I personally believe that reading plenty of good writing will do more for language development than picking apart grammar will do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Ds had one year of Easy Grammar in late elementary school. Has it hurt him to have never done any serious study of grammar? He didn't get a 36 on the English section of the ACT. I think he would have if we had done one year of more serious grammar. He was close anyway though, and for him, it didn't matter. No regrets not wasting more time on grammar here. He writes beautifully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SA Homeschooler Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Who authored Grammar Made Easy? I'm interested in a sentence combining approach. Is this the resource that takes that angle? Grammar Made Easy: Writing a Step Above by Connie Schenkelberg: http://everyday-education.com/grammar/ That is the one that uses the sentence combining approach. It has the option to diagram but we just skipped that part as I saw no use for it. I'm 47 years old and have never had to diagram in my life and I've done just fine. Killgallon's Story Grammar uses the imitation approach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I agree that many kids can pick it up with a lot of reading and having a grammar-literate parent correct their work. We did a lot of copywork too. Some need more explicit grammar instruction for it to stick, so I would do that they're not writing with just a few errors each time at around 5th grade or so. Knowing the parts of speech and sentence patterns also helps with foreign language studies. I taught Latin II locally for several years, and grammar was one of the barriers my students had. I normally spent about 1/2 the lesson on English grammar and then applied it to Latin. None of those students were even close to being ready for Latin III at the end, so it was more complex than just grammar for them. It sounds like OP is fine on both fronts though. I'm not as familiar with the new SAT/PSAT, but standardized testing and college testing asks for identifying and/or correcting errors, not "what is the predicate." I also read all of mine's papers unless it was for an outside class where they say not to do that. Here and there I still catch errors that we talk about. Mine (10th and 12th grade) frequently have error-free writing now. Yesterday my oldest wrote two short essays (500-700 words), and neither one had any grammar errors. One had a phrase that I felt was a little more slang than was appropriate, but that was it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingiguana Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 We didn't. You don't need to for the standardized tests. My suspicion is that if you know too many explicit rules it will just slow you down on the test. Mostly, you just need to see if it sounds or looks right. If you can do it as a gut reaction kind of thing, you'll get through it a lot faster and therefore score a lot higher. If you have to stop to remember a rule, you won't score as well. I don't know what to suggest for someone who doesn't score well in that section. I suspect it has more to do with how much reading one has done and how much of that got internalized. Maybe memorizing the rules would help some in that situation. Maybe. I still think it's going to slow one down. The major thing that those tests test is speed. And you don't get speed if you have to stop to think about anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trilliums Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 I think this mostly depends on the child. We did very little formal grammar. Older son scored >98th percentile on sat with little prep. Younger son scores well, but not as high. He is using The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar as prep and we both find it effective . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 We didn't make it a high priority, but teaching some grammar has been effective for ds as he enjoys foreign language and linguistics. He's very pattern oriented and knowing the pattern of English has helped with other languages. Because ds is more interested in learning other languages, we are using this book for grammar spread out over last year and this. English Grammar for Japanese Students - they have similar books for other languages as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muttichen Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 I never explicitly taught grammar, other than with foreign languages, and all six of my kids scored very well on the SAT and PSAT (all six were National Merit finalists and their SAT scores ranged from 2320-2400.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corraleno Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 I know someone (the daughter of a former member of this board), who was a voracious reader but did not study formal grammar (except for self-teaching Latin), who scored perfect 800s on both the reading & writing sections of the SAT, so that approach obviously didn't hurt her scores. She's also received A+ on every essay in DE classes. I was also a voracious reader who never studied formal grammar, and scored in the 99th% on the SATs (National Merit Scholar). I've published academic articles and a book, and have worked as a professional editor. The only formal grammar my 10th grader has had was a one-semester class with Lukeion (Barbarian Diagrammarian) the summer before 7th grade; the rest of his grammar comes from multiple foreign languages and self-study in linguistics. My 7th grader is taking the Lukeion grammar course this semester, and will also have some Latin and a few years of Spanish by the time she takes the SAT/ACT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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