Beowulf Grammar?

[Janeway]

Daughter is really struggling. She is 10 yrs old. We tried to start Fix-It but she could not even identify a noun. I had her evaluated for learning disabilities and she is above average in receptive language and reading and so on, but very low in the area of written communication. We did TGTB before this and she did not like it. I also tried BJU English and she glossed over. Before that, she was in a charter school. She would like to eventually return to the charter school, which happens to use a lot of WTM and CAP materials.

I took her to the store with me to look at programs and had wanted to do Well Ordered language as that is what the charter school was using. But she got that look on her face and shook her head no when she looked at it. And no way is she ready for the next WTM grammar. She said she was okay with Easy Grammar and Fix It. I also showed her things like Rod and Staff and a few others and it was no way to her. 

We tried doing Fix It, but we are on week 3 of Nose Tree and she still cannot pick out a noun. I have always loved how Beowulf Grammar looks, by Guest Hollow. I showed it to her, even though she is not asking to give up on Fix It yet. Should I just move on to Beowulf?

 

edited to add: with TGTB, she grew tired of the artsy stuff after a while and would ask to skip over or just read what needs to be read and move on. I am a little worried this would happen with Beowolf too.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Janeway

[Dianthus]

I would go with FLL just to simply get the info to her.

I have looked at Beowulf and like it except the cost of printing. I think you should avoid fluff and FLL is very straighforward.

 

[silver]

I've used Beowulf Grammar and enjoyed it. I didn't print it though. We read it together on a larger 10" tablet and I would print out the student pages that required cutting and gluing stuff (otherwise she would just write with a stylus on the PDF directly using a PDF annotation app). I think it worked quite well, because she was bored when we finished it and I tried to switch her to ELTL and placed her too low.

MCT Island level is another one that's good for helping with grammar basics. You could minimize costs by purchasing just teacher books of Grammar Island (read that first), Sentence Island (this one is not good for teaching writing, but is good for reinforcing grammar), and Practice Island. If you have an iPad, I think the MCT books are available as special ebooks for them. (I only have android, so I can't comment on the apple books versions.)

[Cararoe]

I just wanted to add that they just updated Beowulf so that it can be printed double-sided so that does cut down on printing costs a bit.
 

It’s my 8-year-old’s favorite subject.  Nothing is better to her than a dog teaching you grammar 😅

[eternallytired]

The problem my kids had with Fix-It Grammar was that it gave them a whole sentence and asked them to identify certain parts of speech before they knew what all the parts of speech were.  It's more a whole-to-parts approach, and our brains don't work that way.  I LOVE Fix-It, though, for teaching writing conventions, editing, varied sentence structures, etc.

I've used two different programs that have both worked well for addressing parts of speech before moving on to everything else.  I used MCT (Grammar Island and Practice Island) with my older two.  It introduced the parts of speech and had kids gradually work up to identifying them all.  (The sentences start with just noun and verb for you to identify, and they only add more words as more parts of speech are introduced.)  If you're looking for something faster/more get-er-done, I used Eugene Monteaux's Drawing Sentences this past year for my youngest.  It's available from the publisher for $25.  It's a pretty hefty book (three books in one), but even the first section will get you all your main parts of speech and start in on different phrases and clauses.  Like MCT, it starts with short sentences that have only a noun and verb to identify and builds on from there.  Unlike MCT, it doesn't have the story element added onto the workbook portion: it's just a brief explanation and then several sentences to practice.  If you're just looking for a grammar foundation, do the first chunk of Drawing Sentences (until you get your main parts of speech) and then switch back to Fix-It for more writing conventions.  Keep alternating between practicing identifying parts of speech/diagramming and the writing/editing.  Just thought I'd give you one more thing to research and consider. 😁

[Dianthus]

The Sentence Family was a good read for my dd at that in between stage to cement parts of speech. Actually a good reminder to pull it out and do with ds10 right now. A few months ago we read through MCT's Grammar Island and Sentence Island. He tolerated it much better than my dd did.

[Laura S.]

Lasy year I did Beowulf's Grammar with my then 10 year old & enjoyed it (at least as much as I was likely to enjoy grammar that is). My daughter found the ongoing story line with the dog very engaging & funny. The lessons started really gentle with lots of cut & paste & other activities, but built up over the year to more straight workbook by the end. That was a good thing in our case, because the activities drew interest & fun at first, but towards the end of the year my daughter just wanted to get the lesson done & move on to other work. The lessons paced out with that change very well. It sounds like that might work similarly for your family as well. The amount of work per day was very manageable IMO. I dont think it was as deep a grammar course as many others, but it did cover all the basics & then some. I'd think it about perfect for a reintroduction to grammar study that isnt at all intimidating to the student & makes a good base for futher study.