Importance of Grammar

[MiddleCourt]

In trying to determine my rising 7th grader’s curricula for next year, some questions about grammar have occurred to me. I’d love anyone’s input, especially moms of older kids and/or graduated kids. 

Do you do grammar every year? A more intensive year of grammar? Do you find grammar needs a lot of repetition or do they typically need to be reminded yearly what to capitalize and what a possessive noun is? Do you find sentence diagramming necessary? Was diagramming ultimately a net positive in their education or did it really matter if they knew how to diagram a complex sentence when it came to high school writing?

My 12 yr old likes Daily Grams. I switched him this year (6th) to CLE language arts. I find it to be more thorough but my son drags his feet so much that he is only on Light Unit 2 in April. He’s asked to return to DG next year but I don’t know- I looked at samples and it appears to be the same things he’s learning over and over. DG also doesn’t diagram sentences so it got me to wondering about the weight of diagramming. I’m not necessarily looking for advice on what to do with him, just curious about what others do and how the nitty gritty of grammar plays out in the end.

[Rosie_0801]

I don't see a lot of use in spending much time on grammar if you don't diagram sentences, but my kiddo has learning disabilities with syntax, so it was necessary for us to spend quite a lot of time. Studying grammar didn't improve her writing directly, but it gave her vocabulary and reasoning. It's far easier to discuss errors when they have a name and far easier to apply that rule in other assignments when you can find out *why* it is wrong. If I had a kid studying another spoken/written language, I'd have gone right into grammar for similar reasons.

I'm quite sure dd has forgotten half of it by now, since she completed the diagramming books I had over a year ago, but I know she has referred to the reference books I bought a few times, so she can apply to them again in the future if she needs to.

 

[Ellie]

4 hours ago, MiddleCourt said:

In trying to determine my rising 7th grader’s curricula for next year, some questions about grammar have occurred to me. I’d love anyone’s input, especially moms of older kids and/or graduated kids. 

Do you do grammar every year? A more intensive year of grammar? Do you find grammar needs a lot of repetition or do they typically need to be reminded yearly what to capitalize and what a possessive noun is? Do you find sentence diagramming necessary? Was diagramming ultimately a net positive in their education or did it really matter if they knew how to diagram a complex sentence when it came to high school writing?

My 12 yr old likes Daily Grams. I switched him this year (6th) to CLE language arts. I find it to be more thorough but my son drags his feet so much that he is only on Light Unit 2 in April. He’s asked to return to DG next year but I don’t know- I looked at samples and it appears to be the same things he’s learning over and over. DG also doesn’t diagram sentences so it got me to wondering about the weight of diagramming. I’m not necessarily looking for advice on what to do with him, just curious about what others do and how the nitty gritty of grammar plays out in the end.

Neither of my dc needed much formal grammar instruction. We did not do diagramming. Both write well, and did well in college.

Daily Grams is intended to be review, not the primary instruction, which is why it repeats, or reviews, each year. That's what Easy Grammar is: the primary instruction. My younger dd did Easy Grammar when it was first published; DG had not been written yet, so that one year of EG, when she was 11ish, was pretty much her whole formal grammar instruction. Personally, I would say, at the most, to do Easy Grammar Plus next year and call it good. Of course, EG doesn't cover all the things that CLE does, so you'll have to find other things to do that.

[HomeAgain]

I appreciated how diagramming broke down sentences visually and pushed my kid to apply the lessons in other languages. Latin is tough, but it's less tough if you have a firm grasp on how the structure translates from one language to the other.

That said, we went down to minimal English grammar lessons in 6th grade.  My goal was to get him to practice diagramming 3 sentences a day in English, work on Latin and French grammar in context, and break out diagrams as necessary for all 3 languages.  Sometimes a text would get heavy and convoluted in history or science - being able to train your brain to find the subject, attach it to the verb, and work out all the extra information is an invaluable skill.

If I was not teaching my kid to apply grammar rules and diagramming in his daily work at this point I don't see the reason for continuing the disconnected lessons.  Kids probably don't see the reason, either.  The logic stage should be about application of material and seeing how it all fits together.

[MiddleCourt]

20 hours ago, Ellie said:

Neither of my dc needed much formal grammar instruction. We did not do diagramming. Both write well, and did well in college.

Daily Grams is intended to be review, not the primary instruction, which is why it repeats, or reviews, each year. That's what Easy Grammar is: the primary instruction. My younger dd did Easy Grammar when it was first published; DG had not been written yet, so that one year of EG, when she was 11ish, was pretty much her whole formal grammar instruction. Personally, I would say, at the most, to do Easy Grammar Plus next year and call it good. Of course, EG doesn't cover all the things that CLE does, so you'll have to find other things to do that.

We did use Easy Grammar one year when he took an outside language arts class. It was overkill for me. He likes Daily Grams and asked to do it in the past, so I obliged because he knew the basics of the 8 parts of speech, capitalization, etc. I added in CLE this year to get some practice with diagramming. I feel all over the place with his grammar instruction. When I reflect, I think I just added in diagramming so I can have assurance that *I* taught them properly, just like I taught the cursive even though others may not anymore. But I need to determine what the end game is there. (As an aside, I  already only use CLE for their grammar and we skip the spelling and writing). 

[ScoutTN]

We did some each year in elementary, then an intensive year with lots of diagramming before beginning Latin. Then applied what she knew to Latin, then later to French. We did a bit of spot-reviewing when needed, mostly for writing.

[ScoutTN]

In tutoring writing, I find diagramming helpful to explain why a sentence is bad. Or even not actually a sentence!

[HomeAgain]

7 minutes ago, ScoutTN said:

In tutoring writing, I find diagramming helpful to explain why a sentence is bad. Or even not actually a sentence!

Oh, yes!  I don't know how many times I went through ds's work with him and had him pick apart a "sentence" he had written. 

[8filltheheart]

I agree. The purpose of grammar studies is to ensure proper usage in speech and writing. It is far easier for students to master parallel construction, correct punctuation, and subject/verb agreement when they can be discussed in terms of grammar.

[Lucy the Valiant]

Grammar is pretty important in this house, but it's a "mastery" goal, not a "spend all the time we can" goal. We start around 3rd / 4th grade, explain the end goal to the kids, let them take the WHOLE 6th grade year off, and then use 7th grade as an experiment to see how much they've retained. The end goal is 2-fold (from the kid's perspective): successfully complete the 8th grade level of our grammar series, and then be personally responsible for correct grammar / punctuation / usage / MLA formatting going forward.

We're on Kid #4. 😉

Editing to add: Our reasons for teaching English grammar are 3-fold:

1 - Parsing a complex idea / sentence into its discrete parts is a skill that often transfers to other fields (even when the kid doesn't realize it's happening).  (This is helpful in 2nd or 3rd languages, too, usually.)

2 - Yes, so kids can speak and write correctly, and to a level that their grammar and usage doesn't interfere with their content. 

3 - So that when (if?) someone else tells them their grammar is incorrect, they have the tools and foundation to be able to assess if that's actually true or not. (This is an educational pet peeve of mine in math as well, that I fear I've passed down to my kids - oh, well. 😉 )

Edited April 9 by Lucy the Valiant

[Green Bean]

nm.

Edited May 7 by Green Bean

[countrymum]

On 4/8/2024 at 7:38 PM, Lucy the Valiant said:

Grammar is pretty important in this house, but it's a "mastery" goal, not a "spend all the time we can" goal. We start around 3rd / 4th grade, explain the end goal to the kids, let them take the WHOLE 6th grade year off, and then use 7th grade as an experiment to see how much they've retained. The end goal is 2-fold (from the kid's perspective): successfully complete the 8th grade level of our grammar series, and then be personally responsible for correct grammar / punctuation / usage / MLA formatting going forward.

We're on Kid #4. 😉

Editing to add: Our reasons for teaching English grammar are 3-fold:

1 - Parsing a complex idea / sentence into its discrete parts is a skill that often transfers to other fields (even when the kid doesn't realize it's happening).  (This is helpful in 2nd or 3rd languages, too, usually.)

2 - Yes, so kids can speak and write correctly, and to a level that their grammar and usage doesn't interfere with their content. 

3 - So that when (if?) someone else tells them their grammar is incorrect, they have the tools and foundation to be able to assess if that's actually true or not. (This is an educational pet peeve of mine in math as well, that I fear I've passed down to my kids - oh, well. 😉 )

Could you share what Grammar/writing program you use? I'm just curious. My oldest is in middle school and I'm trying to figure out our next step.

And yes we've done grammar and writing. He can write a decent summary and diagram a sentence;) He is also dyslexic so it's slow.

[Green Bean]

nm.

Edited June 12 by Green Bean

[Lucy the Valiant]

On 5/7/2024 at 6:19 PM, countrymum said:

Could you share what Grammar/writing program you use? I'm just curious. My oldest is in middle school and I'm trying to figure out our next step.

And yes we've done grammar and writing. He can write a decent summary and diagram a sentence;) He is also dyslexic so it's slow.

After trying Michael Clay Thompson, Easy Grammar, and one other one I can't remember, the kids found that Rod & Staff worked best for them - they did only the grammar parts, and skipped the writing parts (because we do grammar & writing separately). Nobody LIKED Rod & Staff, but they "got it," and were able to transfer the skills to the places they needed them. I did not personally CARE which program they used - just that they USE one and get 'er done. 

[marybarr]

On 4/9/2024 at 2:38 AM, Lucy the Valiant said:

Grammar is pretty important in this house, but it's a "mastery" goal, not a "spend all the time we can" goal. We start around 3rd / 4th grade, explain the end goal to the kids, let them take the WHOLE 6th grade year off, and then use 7th grade as an experiment to see how much they've retained. The end goal is 2-fold (from the kid's perspective): successfully complete the 8th grade level of our grammar series, and then be personally responsible for correct grammar / punctuation / usage / MLA formatting going forward.

We're on Kid #4. 😉

Editing to add: Our reasons for teaching English grammar are 3-fold:

1 - Parsing a complex idea / sentence into its discrete parts is a skill that often transfers to other fields (even when the kid doesn't realize it's happening).  (This is helpful in 2nd or 3rd languages, too, usually.)

2 - Yes, so kids can speak and write correctly, and to a level that their grammar and usage doesn't interfere with their content. 

3 - So that when (if?) someone else tells them their grammar is incorrect, they have the tools and foundation to be able to assess if that's actually true or not. (This is an educational pet peeve of mine in math as well, that I fear I've passed down to my kids - oh, well. 😉 ) Also, when it comes to writing and grammar, I use a few tools which help me understand whether everything is correct or not. I've used Grammarly for some time, and lately, I'v been using https://chat.openai.com/g/g-a0ULgFcuZ-essay-helper, which is my big helper now. There I can check if I've made any mistakes, and also when I have no idea what to write, I can use it for that reason too.

I agree with you. I think grammar is very important thing, and I try to practice it to improve, not just there is time for it.

And I agree with you on Rod & Staff - it's something which can help improve

Edited May 26 by marybarr

[hollyhock2]

We do grammar every year but not always with the same depth. I often use English programs that are lighter on grammar but I try to include at least one year that's more grammar-intense. (That will be 6th grade for DD this fall.)

Absolutely, in my house, it needs to be repeated endlessly to really be learned well (if I actually want them to remember the parts of speech, definitions of them, etc.). However, after years of intensive grammar with my oldest and very little retention, I relaxed my expectations. Now I am satisfied with seeing them write well in high school, which seems to happen whether we do intense grammar or not. 

We do diagramming if it's included in our current English program, but if it's not, we don't. We have never done enough to make it a really useful tool, and although I can see how that might be useful, we seem to have survived without it.

[maize]

I'm the outlier on this I guess; we do very little formal grammar study.

I learned to write English primarily by reading English, and my kids have done the same. Some people may need things more explicitly broken down, but human brains in general seem to be well-adapted to picking up the structure of language (a native language especially) through exposure. 

I teach mechanics as needed; that's really a separate thing from grammar though it often gets lumped under the same label. Some of my kids have absorbed almost all the mechanics they needed through reading, others have benefited from more direct instruction.

[Frances]

We definitely did not do grammar every year, we did it once and did it right. This was a major thing, along with actually being able to speak and understand a foreign language (with little concern about reading and writing)that I wanted to do differently than my own public school education where I had poor grammar instruction for 12 years and endless worksheets.
 

In elementary school we did some copy work and dictation. Then Analytical Grammar during seventh and eighth grade which heavily emphasizes diagramming. My son did not like it but excelled at it. Many times during college, especially when he was taking writing intensive humanities classes in his honor’s college, he thanked me for making him do it. He also found the knowledge useful when studying other languages. He aced the grammar section of all standardized tests, is an excellent writer which is very important for his job, and as an adult, reads grammar books for fun.

Edited May 28 by Frances

[MiddleCourt]

Thank you everyone for sharing your insight and experience. I appreciate reading responses from all over the spectrum. I am going to sit down and map out what I want his 7th and 8th grade years to look like and really nail down how to approach grammar and writing.

[A.M.]

On 5/28/2024 at 6:59 AM, Frances said:

We definitely did not do grammar every year, we did it once and did it right. This was a major thing, along with actually being able to speak and understand a foreign language (with little concern about reading and writing)that I wanted to do differently than my own public school education where I had poor grammar instruction for 12 years and endless worksheets.
 

In elementary school we did some copy work and dictation. Then Analytical Grammar during seventh and eighth grade which heavily emphasizes diagramming. My son did not like it but excelled at it. Many times during college, especially when he was taking writing intensive humanities classes in his honor’s college, he thanked me for making him do it. He also found the knowledge useful when studying other languages. He aced the grammar section of all standardized tests, is an excellent writer which is very important for his job, and as an adult, reads grammar books for fun.

I like this approach. We find grammar important for the study of one's own language and other languages. We don't think, however, that it is necessary to go through a whole curriculum year after year after year, although we enjoy it. Some years we focus on grammar and on learning new concepts, and other years we simply refer to the rules as we write or learn second/third languages.