Now I'm thinking I should just give Winston a whirl now. questions

[rafiki]

.

[scrapbabe]

I'll bump this for ya. I bought Winston and have never used it. It's just sits on my shelf collecting dust.

 

Smiles,

Shalynn

[Julie]

I used Winston, but we did a page a day which takes you though it pretty fast so I used the supplimental book as well. I never did the last three steps you mentioned. As a result my kids know the parts of speech. I am happy with the knowledge they possses at the moment, however, Winston is not the a heavy duty grammar program like Rod and Staff or some of the others.

 

HTH

[rafiki]

.

[Lori D.]

I have the Teacher's Manual, Student Workbook, and cards. Should I order the supplemental workbook?

 

 

We didn't. (Didn't even know there was a supplemental workbook!)

 

 

 

Am I understanding the process correctly?

1. Introduce the cards, model sentence, assign 2 sentences per day, go over anything missed, retype and give the next day.

2. When worksheet is completed, spend a couple days haivng dc locate that part of speech a paragraph.

3. When that is easy ask for that part of speech to be used in 2 sentences, which they write and mark.

4. Only if they can do that move on?

 

 

:blush: I'm afraid I'm not very good at reading or following a TM, so while this sounds reasonable, I can't say for sure that is the process as laid out by Winston.

 

 

 

Did you tweak this method at all?

 

 

:blush: :blush: Ahem. See above. Yes, I did tweak -- but that's because I *always* tweak. Here's what we did:

 

Did Winston 3 days a week, taking about 10 minutes a day.

 

Day 1:

- Introduce the concept from the TM

- Go over the "clues" on the card

- Do a sample sentence

- Write 4 of the student workbook sentences on the board and then have student mark the sentence:

 

a. first go thru and write abbrev. of each part of speech they know above each word (so there will be words unmarked in those early lessons)

N = noun

V = verb

PN = pronoun

ADJ = adjective

ADV = adverb

PREP = preposition

CONJ = conjunction

INT = interjection

 

b. I introduced the 2 parts of a *sentence* (subject = the who or what of the sentence, predicate = the action or being of the subject -- in other words, everything else other than the subject) -- and I had them mark the subject with a single underline, predicate with a double underline, and separate the two with a vertical line. For any sentence, have them start with telling you the simple subject and the simple predicate -- i.e., the 2 words that the sentence is all about -- everything else just adds onto that in some way.

 

c. once you know nouns, for awhile I had them tell me if it was a common or proper noun

 

d. once you know verbs, always mark whether it's an action verb or verb of being (also called a "linking verb") -- this is a big help later on for determining noun "jobs" or functions (there are 7 noun functions and we divided them into 2 categories: one of the 3 object functions, which can ONLY happen if you have an action verb: object of the preposition, direct object, indirect object; or one of the 4 "naming" functions: subject, appositive (renames the subject right after the subject), noun of direct address (directly names the subject with a proper noun name), or a predicate nominative (nominative comes from the word meaning "name", so this is a renaming of the subject IN the predicate -- in other words, after the verb; also this can ONLY come AFTER a verb of being/linking verb)

 

Also, it is helpful to memorize the dozen or so helping verbs at some point and always label them as such, and realize they are part of the "verb phrase" -- that sometimes a verb needs 1-2 helping verbs to do its job.

 

e. once you know adjectives and adverbs, use an arrow to show what word each modifies ("adds onto" -- get it? ADjective, ADverb, ADD onto?)

 

f. once you know prepositions (note the word "position" in the word "prePOSITION -- prepositions are words that often tell you about the position of a noun in the sentence; example: "UNDER the table"; "BEYOND the river"), realize you'll have a prepositional phrase -- always starts with a preposition and ends when you get to the first noun or pronoun; mark the phrase with parentheses, and mark the noun that ends the preposition with OP for "object of the preposition

 

g. once you know conjunctions, remind them that coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, etc.) always connect the SAME two things -- either 2 words or two phrases or two clauses (that will be helpful when you get to Winston Advanced).

 

h. interjections are easy -- the word interject means to "throw into", so interjections "throw some emotion into" the sentence; gotta love that Schoolhouse Rock song of "Interjections!"

 

 

Day 2

1. review the concepts

2. write out 4 more sentences

3. student marks as above

 

 

Day 3

1. review the concepts

2. write out 4 more sentences

3. student marks as above

 

 

The following week, we'd either repeat or do a few more sentences on Day 1, or if they were ready, we'd move on to the next lesson.

 

 

And if/when we hit a wall, then do the supplemental workbook for review?

 

If we hit a wall we would either:

- back up and re-do the lesson

- set the program aside for a few weeks and do some supplemental grammar, such as:

Mad Libs

Grammar Ad Libs

Schoolhouse Rock: Grammar Rock DVD and computer game

Comicstrip Grammar

online grammar games (Grammar Gorillas and others)

make our own Sonlight-type dictation worksheets and practice grammar concepts learned so far