The Curriculum Choice

Every online homeschool forum that I belong to eventually gets around to the question of teaching grammar. Parents are concerned about what to teach, how to teach it, and, the biggie, at what age to begin formal grammar studies.

For our family, the answer to these concerns differs with each child, but one resource that has become a staple for this subject in our homeschool is English for a Thoughtful Child by Mary F. Hyde (revised and edited by Cynthia A. Shearer). No matter the age my student is when we begin using this text, I enjoy the relaxed, yet thorough approach.

What You Will Find In This Book:

In this slim volume, you will find basic grammar lessons along with dictation, oral composition, composition, memorization, and picture lessons. At a glance that might seem like an overwhelming amount of ground to cover. However, with just 62 very gentle lessons, this book can be easily completed in an average school year. For younger children (6-8 years old), I would even suggest completing only one lesson a week and using the textbook over a longer period of time. I refer to this a textbook, but there are also reproducible pages for many of the exercises.

How We Use It:

The age and abilities of my child dictate how we approach this book. My now 25-year-old daughter was in upper elementary grades when she worked her way through English for the Thoughtful Child. Because she was already familiar with most of the material being presented, we took an informal approach by working through the book together- most of it while sitting together on the couch. She did not need to complete every exercise; I just wanted to be sure that she had covered basic grammar concepts. My next daughter, who does not agree with my philosophy of “better late than early”, was ready to get down to work when she was just seven years old. She loved “writing assignments”, so she completed most of the exercises and had a grammar section in her notebook where she wrote down all rules that are introduced in this text. I am on round three, this time with my boys (ages thirteen, ten, and eight), and I am modifying our approach yet again.

Erin's notebook page- age 7

Why I Love This Book:

So many grammar books are drill, drill, and more drill. Where is the love of language? This book revels in it. I also enjoy that other disciplines are included. It is easy to put off picture lessons and memorization when I have to go to a separate source. Having it all in front of me makes it easy to follow through on these valuable disciplines that are often considered “extras”.

-Lori Duquette is mom to 7 children and a grandma of 2. Her family is beginning their 19th year of homeschooling. You can read more about their homeschooling adventures at Keeping It Simple.

Grammar is one of those necessary subjects that isn’t always the most fun to do.
Easy Grammar makes it a little easier to complete what can be a daunting task.

Easy Grammar is a grade-by-grade program, teaching kids the essentials of grammar.
There is about 180 lessons in each book, making for one easy lesson a day. Each lesson only takes
10-15 minutes to complete, which makes it much easier to do for kids who aren’t interested
in grammar.

In our homeschool, we’ve completed almost two whole years of Easy Grammar and my
3rd grader is excellent at picking parts of a sentence and punctuating them. I think
it has much to do with this program. There’s so much I like about Easy Grammar, I’ll just
tell you my list:

shortness of lessons (only 10-15 minutes per day)
students can do this mostly on their own…great independent work
each lesson carries over to the next day and builds on itself, so nothing is forgotten
the 3rd grade book focuses on prepositions…my 3rd grader can pick out a preposition anywhere!
there is a teacher’s manual available, but I’ve never thought it was necessary…one less book to buy
covers the essentials without being monotonous
children learn lots in a short block of time
instructions are short and to-the-point

I love Easy Grammar and I plan on using it with all my kids. It’s great especially for boys who tend to
have shorter attention spans. I think this program paired with a great spelling program and a little
vocabulary would make for a great language arts curriculum.

Alicia can be found blogging at her personal blog: La Famille. She has three “students” in her home school and loves being their mama and teacher.

Wordplay Café by Michael Kline is a set of grammar and vocabulary lessons disguised as a book of games. Truth be told, there are a few lessons that cover logic and Greek and Latin in there, too.

The set up of the book itself mimics a menu at a café. There are recipes for games, brain candy (interesting word and language facts), unfortunate cookies (made up but funny definitions for words), keyword kabobs that connect the reader to the internet, taste tests that preview word games and ideas, and Punzles© (puzzles made with puns).

There are six chapters, each named with a pun.

Chapter Won: Word Nutrition is part history, with its discussion of the beginning of language, Greek and Latin roots, and the alphabet, and part game, proven by the inclusion of “Orange Origin Juice,” a game that asks players to create Latin-sounding words for household objects.

Chapter Too: Comfort Food contains the old standbys in language games: anagrams, palindromes, acrostic, and such.

Chapter Free: Dinner for One is filled with games that can have a one-player option. Of course, more can play, too. There is “Homonym Grits,” a game that asks players to alter a nursery rhyme using homonyms and “Spaced-Out Spread,” in which players change familiar speeches, songs, and other writings by combining all of the words into one very long word and then re-spacing the letters into different words and almost words.

Chapter Fore: Deep-Fried Diction for Two (Or More!) has more games, but these are for a group. “Knock, Knockwurst” asks players to write their own knock-knock jokes based on puns. “Bizz Buzz Biscuits” mixes words and numbers as players are challenged to count, but replace multiples of 5 with the word “bizz” and multiples of seven with the word “buzz.”

Chapter 5ive: PC Pancakes focuses on games that involve the computer. “Typo Tea and Biscuits,” for example, leads players in scouring internet pages for errors, while “Translation Toast” uses translation software to discover odd wording resulting from repeatedly translating a selection of text.

Chapter Sicks: Put Words to Work in Your Kitchen teaches players about mnemonics and the phonetic alphabet.

Wordplay Cafe, written for kids ages ate to fore-teen, is sure to delight wordsmiths and grammar non-enthusiasts, alike.

It can be found for free in PDF format on Michael Kline’s website or you can purchase a paper copy on Amazon.

Susan S. is a homeschooling mama of three little ones who get bigger and livelier every day. They delight in living books and hands-on math, and are nurturing a love for God and the amazing world that He created.

Simply Grammar by Karen Andreola has been simply wonderful for my 5th grade son! The subtitle of the book is: A Revised and Expanded Edition of First Grammar Lessons by Charlotte Mason, Founder of the Home Schooling Movement.

Charlotte Mason’s teachings tell us that formal grammar lessons are not intended to start until the age of nine, or around 4th grade, which is the age for which this curriculum is intended. And since Mrs. Andreola has updated Charlotte Mason’s own work with complete integrity, these grammar lessons are simply perfect for the CM homeschool classroom (as well as other styles!)

The lessons:

are short and sweet, lasting only 10-15 minutes.
teach one grammar rule per lesson.
allow mother (or other teacher) and child to work together in a loving exchange.
can often be completed orally, but offer opportunities for transferring lessons to paper as well.
are living, as opposed to dry and dull.
are interspersed with black and white Victorian era drawings meant to spur ideas when a child is asked to come up with their own examples within the lessons.

My son DOES NOT thrive on mindless work. He will dutifully complete a worksheet full of practice exercises and do fairly well, however the concepts don’t seem to stick after the fact. He also DOES NOT thrive with written language – yet. It’s very time-consuming for him to write sentence after sentence when he’s more focused on letter formation and correct spelling than content. Giving him the opportunity to learn grammar without the added written pressures allows him to actually learn the grammar, which is simply marvelous!

I will admit that occasionally I feel like the words used to describe a concept are a tad difficult for my son to understand. For instance, instead of telling my son directly what the eight state of being verbs are, there is a rather vague explanation that left my son scratching his head. Once I re-worded the explanation and gave him a simple chant to memorize the state of being verbs, he did fine. So, in short, mom probably ought to have at least a decent understanding of early grammar in case she needs to re-word once in a while. (Or at least have the internet nearby to type in “state of being verbs” or other key words if you need a list.)

I almost missed out on this fantastic curriculum. I approached Karen for a review copy of Story Starters and she graciously included Simply Grammar and Lessons at Blackberry Inn as well. She already knows how indebted I am for opening my eyes – and my son’s – to the wonderful lessons found in Simply Grammar! By the way, you’ll see the review of Story Starters before long!

-Cindy is an eclectically Charlotte Mason mom of three. You can find her blogging at Our Journey Westward and find her NaturExplorers units at Shining Dawn Books.

When I was a child, my younger sisters studied grammar differently than I did. They learned something mysterious called ‘diagramming’ and had very interesting textbooks.

Many years later a friend of mine was selling some books, and in the pile I found Rod and Staff grammar texts. Exactly what my sisters had studied! Of course I bought them. We were ready for a formal grammar program.

Following Charlotte Mason’s ideas, we did not do grammar for the first few years, but my oldest was certainly old enough by this time. We had tried Simply Grammar, but it did not have enough practice for the children and required too much of my time. We tried Grammar Songs, but did not appreciate the music. We had a little grocery store diagramming booklet, but that wasn’t enough. Daily Grams had been a good introduction, but we were ready to move on, and the accompanying Easy Grammar was not as thorough as I wished. Christian Liberty Press Grammar had been a huge disappointment because it did not teach in a way that worked for us.

So we were eager to try something else. It turned out that the Building Christian English series from Rod and Staff Publishers was the answer. This is a rigorous, thorough, well-organized, clear, Christian, mom-friendly, multi-year grammar program, with good answer keys and tests. It also includes significant lessons on writing and communication.

About Building Christian English Levels 4-8:

Each hard cover student text contains about eleven chapters, comprising approximately 120 lessons, and is illustrated with simple black and white drawings.
The lessons contain clear explanations and examples, with important concepts in boxes.
After some oral drill questions, the lessons end with written practice and occasionally a review section. Every chapter also ends with an entire review lesson.
Interspersed through the grammar teaching are writing exercises which are clearly labeled in the table of contents as well as in the text itself.
The index is clear and thorough.
In each of these volumes, poetry appreciation and sentence diagramming are taught.
Exercises and examples often relate to the Bible, nature, or everyday Mennonite life.

The Teacher’s Manual contains the entire student text, with teaching notes and answers printed in large, colored margins. Answers to the worksheets, the chapter tests, and the exams (for higher levels only) are in the back of the book. The worksheets, tests, and exams come in 8×11 inch paperback booklets.

Building With Diligence, 4

This book begins with an overview of the text itself and then moves on to simple studies of subjects and predicates; sentences; nouns; verbs; pronouns; adjectives; adverbs; punctuation; prepositions and conjunctions; and capitalization and dictionary use. Composition lessons include instruction about sentences, paragraphs, unity and order in paragraphs, poetry, reports, stories, and letters. Each chapter begins with a relevant rhyme and has worksheets and a test.

Following the Plan, 5

This level begins with review and covers the previous year’s topics in greater depth—topics such as compound sentences; appositives; outlining; kinds of pronouns; direct, indirect, and divided quotations; conversation in stories; using a concordance; and more. Chapters begin with picture discussions of the subject matter.

Progressing with Courage, 6

Topics range from perfect tenses to diagramming appositive adjectives, from courtesy in conversation to using subordinate conjunctions, and from complex sentences to writing a report. Each chapter begins with a grammar definition and a Bible text. A final test finishes up the year.

Building Securely, 7

This book teaches paragraph coherence, taking notes, oral reports, poetry, and stories. It also refines the student’s understanding of complex sentences, verbals, pronouns, conjunctions and much more.

Preparing for Usefulness, 8

Originally the final volume in the series, this book deepens a student’s ability to prepare paragraphs, letters, reports, outlines, stories, poetry, directions, and summaries. It also reviews and enhances grammar concepts such as compound complex sentences, dashes and parentheses, and verbal phrases.

We are beginning the level 9&10 books, Communicating Effectively, this summer. The two books at this level do not follow each other but can be studied independently. They involve more writing, editing, and speaking skills and less grammar. At this level our children are learning a lot of grammar in their foreign language studies, so I think we will really appreciate the focus on communication.

How We Used It

After a bit of fumbling about with my oldest, who was the patient guinea pig in our search for a grammar program, we discovered a great way to use the Rod and Staff grammar series. Since it only goes to level 9&10, and since it is quite rigorous, we decided to study each volume two years later than recommended. So, in grade 6 our children begin with the level 4 text, and so on.

This works well because by this age our children can study largely on their own. They do not want me to sit down and explain each concept; that is much too slow for them. The writing involved in level 4 is not too overwhelming for a child in grade 6. By the time the child is in grade 7, working on the level 5 book, he or she is able to absorb much of the content without doing all the exercises. I’ll mark whatever a child chooses to do, and then the child takes the test. If the test score is below 80%, the child has to repeat the chapter, doing all the work in order to learn the material. In this way our children develop maturity and are allowed to take charge of their own learning. At the same time, they acquire a thorough and rigorous knowledge of grammar which is helpful in their writing and their foreign language studies.

By starting with the level 4 book, we miss the content of the earlier textbooks. That is not a problem, because by grade 6 our children have learned a lot of grammar concepts from their language lesson programs. Through the years we also casually discuss parts of speech, often in relation to a foreign language.

Obviously, the children need to do their work in scribblers. They write the tests on loose leaf, though this requires creativity with some of the proofreading exercises. For those, the children usually copy down the word or words that need correction. Although this takes some extra time, it works well for us. Of course, you can always buy a test booklet for each child.

We are eager to begin the level 9/10 program for grade 12 next year. I think we will be able to do both texts in one year if we use the content of other courses as topics for the writing exercises.

Our Opinions

The Building Christian English program from Rod and Staff Publishers is rigorous but not overwhelming. It is suitable for independent study, and has a very helpful and thorough answer key for the grammar lessons. Unfortunately there are no marking rubrics for the writing assignments. The tests are thorough, balanced, and have clear answer keys.

Even though we do not agree with every idea presented, I love the fact that many of the examples and exercises reflect the Bible and Christian living. A non-Christian family might find the religious content overwhelming; for us it is part of the program’s appeal.

Our Recommendations

If you want a thorough, well-organized, Christian grammar program, you should check out the Building Christian English series from Rod and Staff Publishers. Although this Mennonite publishing company has no website, there are two related sites that sell this grammar series: Rod and Staff Books and More (sample lessons available) and Anabaptist Bookstore. The series is also available from some homeschool suppliers.

Disclosure: This review is of a textbook series we have used and loved for years. We already had the products and received no compensation for this review.

-Written by Annie Kate, a Christian homeschooling mom of five great children, who blogs at Tea Time With Annie Kate.