Shurley English

[Lisamary44]

Hi folks,

 

Is anyone out there using Shurley English? My husband is interested in using this but I am a little nervous as I did not do well with this kind of style and not sure how well I will be able to teach this method. 

 

Thanks in advance!

[knitgrl]

We used Shurley English in first grade. The jingles were fun. I completely skipped the writing portion because I didn't feel it was age appropriate. Teaching the rest of it is not hard at all, as it is scripted. After a while, all the lessons are the same, but with different examples. Occasionally, they throw in an extra activity, which you may or may not choose to do.

[mumto2]

We used it and liked it quite a bit. It was designed in a very open and go manner which I loved. It also seemed to coordinate relatively well with multiple grade curriculum going at the same time. We did the jingles together etc. The writing was on the same day etc. If I didn't like the assignment easy to skip.

 

Initially I found it confusing so look it over well when looking at samples or the actual book. I actually bought it and set it aside because it confused me. A friend mentioned she was considering it a couple of months later so I pulled it out again and discovered it was perfect. :lol:

[Creekside5]

I LOVE Shurley English.  I taught it for years at a private school.  My 4th and 5th graders had an extremely good grasp on grammar concepts.  Some of the jingles are cheesy, but it you have an auditory learner, there isn't a better program.  My class made up their own jingles to familiar tunes and I am happy to share them with you.  I think the writing portion is just OK.  There are many better writing programs out there.  I would just skip the writing and use something else.  Shurley has a steep learning curve in the beginning, but if you keep at it, it makes a ton of sense.  It is very classical in the sense that you just memorize in the beginning and with practice the concepts will soak in and become clear.  I don't see any point in beginning Shurley before 3rd grade.  I would use it lightly in 3rd, hit it hard and 4th and 5th (maybe 6th if weak) .  After that they would be ready to tackle a challenging  curriculum like Analytical Grammar with confidence in middle school.  I would be happy to answer any questions.  I like the new versions not the old homeschool versions.  All you really need is the teachers manual and the student workbook.  You might also want the jingle CD (or you could have my jingle list). 

 

[MyLife]

We used Shurley 1 for 1st grade. My son enjoyed it and retained it. He is a very strong auditory learner. My other child is more visual and kinesthetic. So, I will have to modify Shurley a little for him, but that is not a big deal to me.

 

At first, I did not enjoy teaching Shurley English because the Teachers Manual and Student Workbook were cumbersome. After a couple of weeks, though, I adjusted to the format.

 

I have been flip-flopping around about what to use for 2nd grade. I was worried that Shurley English was too repetitive. I even purchased a couple of new L.A. resources, but I decided to stick with Shurley. My son enjoys it and expressed that he wants to use it again next school year.

 

We do *some* of the writing exercises in Shurley, but we use Writing With Ease as our writing program. We use Shurley primarily for grammar and the few study skills that they introduce.

 

Another reason I am sticking with Shurley is because I am planning on using Logos Latin, which coordinates with Shurley from what I understand.

Edited May 31, 2017 by MyLife

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

I have used it, but we moved on to something else.  The jingles were great, and it is all scripted.  There is a lot of flipping in the TM, and you have to get used to the format and sentence jingles.  The student book is a bit disjointed too, and everything is black and white.  I also did not do all the writing.  It helped that my son had used it in private school and was familiar with the style, but we ultimately moved to MCT because he didn't have great retention or understanding of the parts of speech.  Perhaps if we stuck with it tip the end, but I wanted to encourage a deeper understanding.  He could label a sentence, but he couldn't really explain the function of an adjective to me outside of the definition.

 

I still think it's a good program.  But as all curricula, its a better fit for some than others.