Why teach grammar?

[hopefromgrace]

This might sound like a stupid question, but really wondering if it's necessary?

I'm looking into different grammar curriculums for my dd and it all just looks so ....pointless, like just so much busy work. :shifty

Predicates, prepostional phrases,adverbs,pronouns,etc...etc...what's the point in knowing all these by name?
It has never served me as an adult to know all that!
It seems like my dd will just naturally pick up on all that through reading and just talking/discussing, why the need to know all the specific names/parts of the sentence?

[mamacat]

I have often wondered the same thng :shifty. Beyond the basic nouns being a person place or thing and verbs being an action word to kind of help beginning sentence writers know how to put a sentence together.

[Heather Micaela]

This might sound like a stupid question, but really wondering if it's necessary?

I'm looking into different grammar curriculums for my dd and it all just looks so ....pointless, like just so much busy work. :shifty

Predicates, prepostional phrases,adverbs,pronouns,etc...etc...what's the point in knowing all these by name?
It has never served me as an adult to know all that!
It seems like my dd will just naturally pick up on all that through reading and just talking/discussing, why the need to know all the specific names/parts of the sentence?

I do think the best way to learn an practice grammar is to read and be read to extensively. However knowing the rules helps you understand why you are doing what you do by osmosis so that you can replicate it and know the times and places to use them without resorting to "Well it seems right."

Because when you begin to read works that are not written as formally, you do not want to absorb any bad habits.

Also when you have what you have written as an adult, you can talk intelligently about it.

"This is a great sentence you have about your work experience but I think you need an adjective to describe the quality of your work."

"A what?"

"An adjective - you know - a describing word"

"Ok - 'I did my work with enthusiasm."

"That is a noun. I need a word to say your work was ____. Like "laborious, meticulous, etc"



Or it also helps when your sentence is way off to say "Hey this sentence has no predicte. It is a fragment. Can you revise it?"


And, finally, it helps so that you can learn to compare it to a second language. I can say "In Spanish the noun comes before the adjective whereas in English the noun comes after the adjective."

[hopefromgrace]

That makes sense, thank you! :D

i still feel that some of the really detailed grammar, seems a bit unnecessary...but i can understand now from what you said about why you might need to know the basics....

[Heather Micaela]

That makes sense, thank you! :D

i still feel that some of the really detailed grammar, seems a bit unnecessary...but i can understand now from what you said about why you might need to know the basics....
yeah diagramming sentences and stuff - not really a need. But even knowing what a preposition is and why something is a subjunctive will really help when learning another language and even when using more complicated writing.

[starbyfar7]

If your kid has no problem forming sentences and writing fluidly, you might be able to skip it. but i had to do extensive grammer/language arts study with my dd.. and her school doesn't even teach language arts :hunh
her verb/subject swapping, not understanding that she needs to keep sentences in the same tense etc was really hard to get past and is still somewhat a challenge.. beyond that i think it's useful for your kid to eventually know what a verb, noun, adjective etc is.. i mean i'm not an advocate of drilling your kid on semantics or the linguistics of the english language but i think its essential for them to understand the basics of grammer

[Katigre]

I need to find the thread where we recently talked about this :think.

[tigerlily]

A really gentle, fun place to start is "Grammarland". :yes

You can get it free on Google Reader. It was written over 100 years ago, but it's language is still highly accessible and it's fun. My 7 1/2 year old is loving it right now.:yes It will introduce the parts of speech in a story format. I'm not very far into the story yet, so I'm not sure what else it offers. There are even little suggested "homework assignments" at the end of each chapter written into the story. For instance, "The children of school-roomshire are to write 20 nouns before we meet again." :giggle

[Maggirayne]

:popcorn

[hopefromgrace]

gonna check out grammarland, thank you!

[ArmsOfLove]

We have been using Simply Grammar. Because of the raging dyslexia around here :rolleyes a few of my children are getting this later than I would like, but I'm LOVING this book :yes *I* am learning things about grammar I never understood--and it's not busy work at all.

ETA: IEW for writing teaches it in the context of writing and we are using that also :yes

[Heather Micaela]

My kids enjoy first language lessons. There is a lot of repetition of rules, but even I can say them now:rockon And while we use Classical curriculum we do it with our our own flair - (we are allowed to repeat in silly voices and such:giggle) We also skip some of the redundancy if it begins to bog us down. But it has been great for my dyslexic child because it begins orally.:)

I will have to look into these other programs though.

[Petie]

Gavin was never taught grammar in school. He is now 15 and when I check his papers before he hands them in, they are always covered in red marks. Knowing the proper use of commas, semicolons, and other punctuations is important. Then I always remember when I was in my 101 class and the professor stated , "no writing in first person". Then the next class he had to stop teaching to explain what that meant. Those are the types of things I want to prevent from happening. Will my child need to know these things if she only writes casually? No. But what if she gets a job that demands reports? What if my son wants to become an academic? Then, these little rules become extremely important.

[hopefromgrace]

We are going to be using WWE for writing.

I was noticing it includes some grammar. Those of you that are familiar with it, do you think it is enough?

[Teribear]

We have done NO formal grammar training until this year. She's a freshman this year. We're doing "Easy Grammar" 9th Grade and it seems to be just about perfect. It's one sheet, no more than 5 or six exercises a day and its filling in the gaps she didn't gather simply from reading and being read to. It's also a good refresher for me.

[Serendipity]

I think it's important but how I would approach teaching it would probably depend on the child's natural writing ability.

I had to re teach myself grammar in HS, despite being an avid reader I simply did not understand it at lower grade levels (I'm sure undiagnosed dyslexia had something to do with that). I realized there was a problem when I had no clue what my German teacher was talking about when we needed to conjugate sentences. I didn't even know how to identify what I was doing in my native language sentence structure how on earth was I going to understand to learn how to write in a foreign language?

[Heather Micaela]

We are going to be using WWE for writing.

I was noticing it includes some grammar. Those of you that are familiar with it, do you think it is enough?
I use it WITH FLL since it is the same publisher. I do not think alone it is enough - but together you can abbreviate both.

[milkmommy]

I use it WITH FLL since it is the same publisher. I do not think alone it is enough - but together you can abbreviate both.

We use and do the same. I skip most of the memory and copy work etc in FLL since WWE covers that , and We dont do all the WWE weekly stuff.

[DoulaClara]

I will explain why I am teaching grammar, and why I think it's important, but note that I also don't think everyone has to carbon copy everything I do.

I think grammar is essential to the ability to use logic and reason, and to whittle out poor rhetoric. I wish I would have learned how to diagram sentences, and I wish my language arts education would have gone farther than "this is a noun, this is a subject, this is an object..." The more I learn about grammar (mostly through examining Henle before I teach my children Latin) the more I feel really cheated. And. The more I notice that when you have the gift to tweak certain things just right, you can hornswaggle a lot of people into believing a lot of things, on a technicality of being "correct" about a fact, but not necessarily how it leads to a certain conclusion. And this is probably the ragin' rampagin' conspiracy theorist side of me, but I do think the deletion of grammar in public education is not unintentional. :shifty (Twilight Zone theme here)

And frankly, if my children ever decide to pursue higher education, I would like them to be able to test out of those inane, mindless wastes of money called "Writing 101" where you basically learn how to write so that you can be understood by a wide audience.

[Firebird Rising]

I was actually going to say what HON said about foreign language. I have had a TERRIBLE time with learning Russian because I've forgotten all the names of things and it's very difficult to figure out sentence structure in Russian. Re-learning all the names has helped tremendously.

I guess for me, it's just something people should know....but I'm also a supporter of phonics as well.

[Heather Micaela]

I guess for me, it's just something people should know....but I'm also a supporter of phonics as well.
:yes but before that - phonemic awareness - the biggest issue my dyslexic has

[mokamoto]

This is really helpful to me bc I am essentially homeschooling my kids in English with a weekly class support, like a homeschooling circle. I don't have an opinion yet, but I am getting started now. :rockon

[Virginia]

As a high school English teacher who has to review nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and more with my students each year, I'm a huge advocate of teaching grammar early! So many of my students simply do NOT understand WHY something is correct/incorrect when it comes to grammar, and it's so hard to explain it to them since they lack the background knowledge they need. It would be so much easier for me to teach them advanced writing skills that will serve them well in college and the job force if they just understood basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

My mom used "Rod and Staff" when she homeschooled me. I learned how to diagram sentences, and I AM SO THANKFUL that I did. I also think being a voracious reader was crucial in my language/grammar/punctuation learning :)

Additionally, I have been able to pick up foreign languages easily (at least, I have been able to do really well in German and Spanish classes).

I know that the current trend in education is to just "teach grammar through one's own writing" and don't bother with diagramming sentences because it is pointless. However, I think that's silly :shifty Knowing proper grammar has proven to be SUCH a useful skill, and it's so much easier to teach it when a kid is young and has a lot of time to incorporate skills into his/her own writing.

[breezy88]

This might sound like a stupid question, but really wondering if it's necessary?

I'm looking into different grammar curriculums for my dd and it all just looks so ....pointless, like just so much busy work. :shifty

Predicates, prepostional phrases,adverbs,pronouns,etc...etc...what's the point in knowing all these by name?
It has never served me as an adult to know all that!
It seems like my dd will just naturally pick up on all that through reading and just talking/discussing, why the need to know all the specific names/parts of the sentence?

I think it is dumb. Ok....noun, verb, adjective I would teach. Beyond that....why? I don't know what a predicate is, or a prepostional phrase and I graduated with honours from a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree.

[Heather Micaela]

I think it is dumb. Ok....noun, verb, adjective I would teach. Beyond that....why? I don't know what a predicate is, or a prepostional phrase and I graduated with honours from a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree.

Commincation, especially today, is done in writing. And even in a field that is not about poetry and literature, you need to convey your thoughts accurately. Even if that is just in the random email or business report.

My husband has a B.S. in business management. I can tell you from editing group papers of his that you may get through school, but grammar errors will cause confusion. I had to call people at midnight to ask them what in the world they meant by a sentence and not being even able to explain to them WHY the thought was unclear. These are people with two more years of schooling (that counts anyway) who had NO CLUE.


And besides, some kids will need right brain literary skills in the future. I think depth can vary according to one's strengths and interests, and -as always- I am still a strong proponent of "better late than early," but I do think that having a firm grasp on WHY we speak and write as we do in our primary language is important.

I have seen grammar words even come up in bible studies . One example is when the pastor explained that a translation should have been been in the in the future progressive tense rather than the prestent perfect. there the scripture "Be filled with the holy spirit" should really be "Be being filled with the holy spirit," -which is more accurate. Sure the pastor could just say "they translated this wrong" :shrug3 but if you have it explained, it clarifies it more. It also helps you choose words to more accurately convey your thoughts and avoid confusion.

At the least you need to know basic parts of speech and basic parts of a sentence (subject, predicate, and object at the very least) so you can make sure they are all there and avoid confusion. It will teach you why you cannot dangle modifiers unless you WANT to tell a joke like "I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith" - And then you will know WHY it is funny.


A few more grammar rules to know and keep (some are outdated/incorrectly understood):
Don’t dangle modifiers
This is the "Smith" thing above. If you do not clearly state which word is being modified (by "Named smith"), then it is ambigious.
Avoid run-on sentences
This is a long string of separate sentences written as one with no commas or other punctuation to separate them. (That is a long sentence right there, but not a run-on. It helps to know why.)
Apostrophes & contractions
if something is a plural (another word one ought to know) then you do not need an apostrophe (This guy -> ' .) He is for showing possesion or for smushing two words together as one (and a few other rare thigns.) If you do this wrong, there is confusion.

And that is what it is all about IMO.

I am cool with slang. Ain't is slang, but I wish we did use it. Used in a correctly formed sentence, it is clear that it means "am not." If you use it in a sentence that is NOT correctly formed you get people using it for "is not".

---------- Post added at 08:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:59 PM ----------

As a high school English teacher who has to review nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and more with my students each year, I'm a huge advocate of teaching grammar early! So many of my students simply do NOT understand WHY something is correct/incorrect when it comes to grammar, and it's so hard to explain it to them since they lack the background knowledge they need. It would be so much easier for me to teach them advanced writing skills that will serve them well in college and the job force if they just understood basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

My mom used "Rod and Staff" when she homeschooled me. I learned how to diagram sentences, and I AM SO THANKFUL that I did. I also think being a voracious reader was crucial in my language/grammar/punctuation learning :)

Additionally, I have been able to pick up foreign languages easily (at least, I have been able to do really well in German and Spanish classes).

I know that the current trend in education is to just "teach grammar through one's own writing" and don't bother with diagramming sentences because it is pointless. However, I think that's silly :shifty Knowing proper grammar has proven to be SUCH a useful skill, and it's so much easier to teach it when a kid is young and has a lot of time to incorporate skills into his/her own writing.
Anyone know a curriculum that teaches this? I know the parts of a sentence, but I would love to see how this is done old-school style. :rockon

Not about the above quote and to nobody in particular. (IOW the "general you" is being used here.):

I also wanted to mention that I think many balk at grammar because we were forced to do it in a dry cookie-cutter way. I hated science for this reason. SCIENCE!!! :jawdrop What could be more hands-on and exciting than SCIENCE??

It is the same reason we hate learning dates in history or geography facts. Memorization and understanding of rules CAN be fun if you know your child and how they learn. Rather than say "This seems stupid and I was bored with it." I think we should say "How can I help my kids see the usefullness and joy in this?"

If I didn't have the above attidute, none of my children would learn anything beyond simple adding, subtracting, mutliplying, and dividing. Because *I* have math phobias. And *I* do fine even without most basic algebra. But what if my kid is going to be an engineer or a physicist? What if your child is the one who is fascinated by words and communication and you are holding them back from the (to them) fascinating world of grammar. Those kids exist :raise but if they are not exposed to it, how will they know there is more to grammar than what you need for Mad Libs?

You do not need to push a child, and if they resist, sure, they will be fine. But I would not start with the idea that you weren't even going to bother.

[breezy88]

Let me clarify,

I like grammar as far a teaching punctuation and sentence structure. I just don't think we need to label all the parts of speech or learn grammar as a separate subject on top of regular English.
For example, I understand the rule that Heather mentioned about the dangling modifier, however I had no idea it was called a dangling modifier. I just know it's wrong to do it and don't do it.

[tazmom]

Heather, Growing with Grammar is supposed to be the secular version of Rod & Staff. It starts simple sentence diagramming in 3rd grade.

[MomtoJGJ]

Let me clarify,

I like grammar as far a teaching punctuation and sentence structure. I just don't think we need to label all the parts of speech or learn grammar as a separate subject on top of regular English.
For example, I understand the rule that Heather mentioned about the dangling modifier, however I had no idea it was called a dangling modifier. I just know it's wrong to do it and don't do it.

What's the difference between regular English and grammar at the elementary level?

[Heather Micaela]

What's the difference between regular English and grammar at the elementary level?
For me they were the same. Language arts (say using the PS model) covers a mutitude of areas: reading to decode, reading to comprehend, understanding thematic elements and other aspects of literature, grammar, composition, penmanship, etc.

In school we had "English" as a subject and "Reading" as a subject. English was the stuff you learn in the MLA or Little Brown Handbook. Reading was literature.

First Language Lessons is not purely grammar either. (Although grammar is part of all writing.) It includes comprehension, remembering story details, repeating back in one's own words, inference, poem memorization, etc. It just ALSO happens to go over grammar rules "A noun is a word for a person, place, thing or idea" and memorizing lists of helper verb "is, am , was, were..." etc. And it COULD be dry if I read it as scripted as it says, But we make it fun, because they have a mom who finds the wonder of God in sentence structure. Seriously.

---------- Post added 08-13-2012 at 12:20 AM ---------- Previous post was 08-12-2012 at 11:57 PM ----------


It is time to stop giving grammar a bad name and look at it for what it is: a technique. It is a tool that can enhance creativity – not stifle it. Grammar is not only a valuable tool for creative writing but also a wonderful aid for teaching. When I was guiding students in creative writing classes, it was so helpful, from a teaching point of view, to be able to say, “Here you used an adjective where you should have used an adverb;” or...
http://www.dltk-kids.com/articles/why_grammar.htm

Grammar to me is like getting music instruction when you can already sing along to the radio . It is technique that refines you and expands your potential. Just about everybody can sing. But learning to understand music theory helps you appreciate the music of the masters even if the most public sining you do is to "happy birthday." From there you can learn to read music a bit and be able to follow along in a hymnal more or less even if you never "sight read" on cue or pick up an instrument. And if we teach a bit of that to every child, they can decide if they are the next Idina Menzel or if they want start a garage band. Or maybe they only sing happy birthday too.:shrug3

I also think understanding basic exercises for sports and the general rules for the most played games in your culture is important too. I like knowing what is going on during the SuperBowl even if I really only watch the commercials. But another person uses that and decides to learn everything there is about the sport and become a player, commentator, whatever.

Tecnique helps you appreciate the subject and use what you picked up naturally even better. And maybe you can get away with not singing (my deaf freind does, but even then she understands rythm and tempo). And maybe you never do a sport or even exercise much. But we all talk and write - even my functionally illeterate child will write notes (with help). So learning the foundation is key. And it does not have to be a drag. I am not a radical unschooler but even grammar rules can be offered in an unschooly way.

[MomtoJGJ]

Thank you... that's how it was for me in school too. And that's how it is so far for my kids.

[Virginia]

It is the same reason we hate learning dates in history or geography facts. Memorization and understanding of rules CAN be fun if you know your child and how they learn. Rather than say "This seems stupid and I was bored with it." I think we should say "How can I help my kids see the usefullness and joy in this?"

Totally agree with this!

As far as teaching grammar through one's own writing, I try to do this with my students (but I have 120 of them, so it's tough to do).

I will use direct instruction, where I first teach them a concept related to grammar explicitly. Then I give them guided practice (maybe an activity where they work with a partner and I model the first few examples for them). Then they practice independently. And finally, I have them do a writing task (write a paragraph using whatever grammar or punctuation-related technique we just learned that day). Then I might have them peer review each other's paragraphs and fix them together. We might even, at the end of the month or whatever, write something that's applicable to real life, like a letter to the school newspaper editor, a letter to the school board, a proposal for a field trip, etc.

I haven't found a curriculum that does this- I kind of just do it on my own. BUT, before the kids can apply grammar rules/techniques to their own writing, I HAVE to teach them explicitly :yes