I'm confused by Easy Grammar - Help!

[UnlikelyHomeschoolingMama]

I've used CLE LA for two years with my DD.  She will be in 4th grade next year and I'm trying to simplify school...a lot.  Cutting out busy work is a HUGE part of that.  A friend uses Easy Grammar and thinks we may like it.  I use a different writing program and spelling, so we don't use CLE LA's penmanship or spelling.  It seems like Easy Grammar may make more sense.  

 

SO....after doing CLE LA 3 and being pretty good at it, does she need Easy Grammar 4? Anybody make this switch? Can I go to grade level?   What are the "daily grams"?  Cathy Duffy says you don't have to do a level every year but can do the Daily Grams?  I'm so confused!  

 

TIA!

[Ellie]

I've used CLE LA for two years with my DD.  She will be in 4th grade next year and I'm trying to simplify school...a lot.  Cutting out busy work is a HUGE part of that.  A friend uses Easy Grammar and thinks we may like it.  I use a different writing program and spelling, so we don't use CLE LA's penmanship or spelling.  It seems like Easy Grammar may make more sense.  

 

SO....after doing CLE LA 3 and being pretty good at it, does she need Easy Grammar 4? Anybody make this switch? Can I go to grade level?   What are the "daily grams"?  Cathy Duffy says you don't have to do a level every year but can do the Daily Grams?  I'm so confused!  

 

TIA!

 

Yes, I'd say that she would do the 4th grade EG. It really doesn't assume any prior knowledge of grammar. :-)

 

Daily Grams is a review. Although the publisher now says to do Easy Grammar and Daily Grams simultaneously, I disagree. IMHO, you could do Easy Grammar one year; Daily Grams the next year; Easy Grammar again, maybe Daily Grams once more. Or one of the Ultimate books in high school. But you might not find it necessary.

 

Easy Grammar was my favorite. :-)

[mschickie]

We always did the Easy Grammar one year and then Daily Grams the next.  I know one family that uses one book of Easy Grammar and  Daily Grams over two years.  Some days they do the Easy Grammar and some they do the Daily Grams.  I know some families who just use the Easy Grammar and never use the Daily Grams.  So I guess what I am saying is that there is no wrong way to do it.  Easy Grammar is going to provide the actual Grammar lessons while Daily Grams is more review.  You would start at grade 4 and then just continue.  Dd is in 8th grade now and we are using Ultimate grade 9 but I will be using it for 2 years just as review. 

[Insertcreativenamehere]

How much review is in Easy Grammar if you don't use Daily Grams? We also use CLE LA only for grammar and appreciate its frequent review.

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Edited April 6, 2017 by insertcreativenamehere

[Garga]

Easy Grammar works for some people, but it didn't work for us at all.  My kids used it for a year and ended up placing below when they started:  they lost knowledge over the course of the year.

 

So, keep a close eye out to be sure they're not losing knowledge.  This is how they lost it:

 

Each concept is taught once.  There are a bunch of exercises about that one concept.  It's pretty easy to get into a rhythm and know how to do the exercises without having to think much about them.  Like, let's say it says to underline the complete subject once and underline the complete predicate twice.  There are 30 problems where you do that one task.  After the first 5 or so, the kids can just mindlessly do the underlining, adding a second line to the underline when they hit the verb.  

 

And then they don't really deal with subject/predicate again for the rest of the year.  And the kids never think about it again.  So a year later when they're being asked to find the complete predicate they've forgotten it because they really only paid attention for about 5 problems and then did the rest on autopilot.  In other programs, a few weeks later, they might be asked to underline the complete subject and complete verbs and now they have to stop and think and be sure they still know how to do it.  With Easy Grammar there isn't enough review.  There is no stopping and thinking and recalling the information.  

 

Of course, this is not true for everyone. Some people can see something once and retain it.  Your kids might respond wonderfully to the program, but I'd advise keeping an eye on them to be sure.  Perhaps type up or copy some of the pages before the kids do them and then wait a couple of months and give the kids the copied pages and see if they still remember how to do them.   

 

 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Garga

[Insertcreativenamehere]

 

 

And then they don't really deal with subject/predicate again for the rest of the year.  And the kids never think about it again.  So a year later when they're being asked to find the complete predicate they've forgotten it because they really only paid attention for about 5 problems and then did the rest on autopilot.  In other programs, a few weeks later, they might be asked to underline the complete subject and complete verbs and now they have to stop and think and be sure they still know how to do it.  With Easy Grammar there isn't enough review.  There is no stopping and thinking and recalling the information.  

 Thank you -- this is what I was wondering. I think I'll keep my younger ones with CLE for now since the spiral aids their retention. I'm considering Daily Grams for my rising 7th grader, though, as we plan to focus more heavily on writing next year and yet I don't want him to entirely forget the grammar he's learned. 

[BusyMom5]

Is there another program that is secular instead of EG that you would recommend to get more review?

[Creekside5]

Easy Grammar works for some people, but it didn't work for us at all.  My kids used it for a year and ended up placing below when they started:  they lost knowledge over the course of the year.

 

So, keep a close eye out to be sure they're not losing knowledge.  This is how they lost it:

 

Each concept is taught once.  There are a bunch of exercises about that one concept.  It's pretty easy to get into a rhythm and know how to do the exercises without having to think much about them.  Like, let's say it says to underline the complete subject once and underline the complete predicate twice.  There are 30 problems where you do that one task.  After the first 5 or so, the kids can just mindlessly do the underlining, adding a second line to the underline when they hit the verb.  

 

And then they don't really deal with subject/predicate again for the rest of the year.  And the kids never think about it again.  So a year later when they're being asked to find the complete predicate they've forgotten it because they really only paid attention for about 5 problems and then did the rest on autopilot.  In other programs, a few weeks later, they might be asked to underline the complete subject and complete verbs and now they have to stop and think and be sure they still know how to do it.  With Easy Grammar there isn't enough review.  There is no stopping and thinking and recalling the information.  

 

Of course, this is not true for everyone. Some people can see something once and retain it.  Your kids might respond wonderfully to the program, but I'd advise keeping an eye on them to be sure.  Perhaps type up or copy some of the pages before the kids do them and then wait a couple of months and give the kids the copied pages and see if they still remember how to do them.   

This is exactly my complaints with Easy Grammar.  I have so many students who can't put the pieces together and forget what a preposition is as soon as we move on to verbs.  I am very frustrated with it.  I do like the Daily Grams and use them for morning work. They are great review, and I especially like the last section where they have to write a complex or compound sentence from simple sentences. So I vote "yes" on Daily Grams and "no"on Easy Grammar.  If you have something that works I wouldn't change it 

[Ellie]

How much review is in Easy Grammar if you don't use Daily Grams? We also use CLE LA only for grammar and appreciate its frequent review.

 

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See, I thought that EG had the dc continue using the things they had already learned. They're supposed to continue marking out prepositional phrases throughout the book; they don't just learn prepositional phrases at the beginning, because always, when you mark out prepositional phrases, what you have left is subjects and verbs and modifiers. It just made sense to me.

 

Daily Grams starts out be "reviewing" things that have not yet been taught in EG, e.g., punctuation and capitalization. I still think a year of EG, followed by a year of DG, followed by a year of EG, should do the job for most children.

[8Arrows4theLord]

You could use R&S for your older child. Just do half the work and skip the writing lessons. It is very repetitive and 1/2 would be sufficient to keep up their skills. We tried Easy Grammar and didn't like the lack of teaching and review. Hope you find something that works.