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kathleenmom
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for my 6th grader. I love it, I really do, but it's not a good fit for my dd. We're using it as recommended in Mater Amabilis at a slower pace, intended to be used over two years.
I find it hard to grade and my daughter is just not "getting" the grammar. I think she needs something more nitty-gritty and bare bones without all of the furbelows. I don't want to piece it together myself, either. Any suggestions anyone?
Kathleen
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Tina P.
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Easy Grammar is my first thought. The premise is that if you take out prepositional phrases, the other parts of speech are clear. However, one thing I found lacking in this program is punctuation. This year, my seventh grader who used EG last year is using Jensen's Punctuation. I have to work with him to understand the rules. Next year, it's back to the EG Plus.
The other thing I would suggest is to start a foreign language if you have not already. Parts of speech and correct placement of those parts and tenses, some of which I never knew existed, became crystal clear when I took a foreign language.
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Anne
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I second Easy Grammar. We used it last year and are now in Lingua Mater and my dd is thriving with it. I must admit that she complains about the work. I do see the fruits of her labor.
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Mackfam
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I'm a big fan of Winston Grammar. It helped my dd a few years ago IMMENSELY! I'm using it this year with my 4th grader and he loves it!
Do you feel like you HAVE to grade Lingua Mater? What about just using Winston Grammar to help with some concretes in grammar and continuing to follow along with Lingua Mater? My dd didn't like hand writing the writing assignments, so I set up a private blog for her to do her writing assignments. She liked that a lot. She could embellish writing assignments with pictures, and in the categories section she would indicate the chapter/assignment for me. I could see when she finished and published an assignment. I'd leave comments for her writing in the comment section, and at times I'd add in editing marks for her. It was nice! I also linked a basic grammar help site for her in the side bar. You can do all sorts of fun things on a blog really, so if you have a reluctant writer, or a child that doesn't enjoy hand writing out an assignment, you might consider a blog as a place for assignments and work to land. It worked out very well for us!
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kathleenmom
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What a great idea Jennifer. I hadn't considered the blog idea. I'll give that some thought. When I say "grade" the Lingua Mater, that was not the "mot juste". I mean, just correcting it. I find the format confusing. It's not a biggie, just one thing on top of the fact that she seems to be missing the grammar part of the lessons and getting bogged down in the assignments.
I'll think about Winston Grammar, thanks for the recommendations ladies.
Kathleen
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kathleenmom
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Does anyone use the consummable pages offered with LM? Are they helpful?
Kathleen
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I think the consumable pages would be helpful, Kathleen. I chose to just make copies (Margot grants copyright permission for families to do this), and though it was completely do-able, it sometimes became "just one more thing". Btw, after 2 years of Winston Grammar, my dd, who couldn't tell you a noun from the bottom of her shoe, can now identify all parts of speech and how to find them in a sentence. I think it lays a really great foundation for diagramming because of the exercises (which are simple). I've heard good things about Easy Grammar as well, and though I haven't used it, it would be worth looking at to see which would be a good fit. I think if my dd had been proficient in basic grammar, Lingua Mater would have been no problem, but since she wasn't it magnified issues for us and we stumbled through it at first until I realized what was missing.
Good luck, Kathleen!
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Becky Parker
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Jennifer,
At what age would you start Winston Grammar? My ds is very much a visual-spatial kinda kid and I think Winston would be a good fit for him. He'll be in fourth grade next year. I just wasn't sure when to start.
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I'm using it with my 4th grader right now. I'm not having him complete the exercises in the workbook right now. We'll do those next year. This year, I introduce the lesson and give him the *parts of speech* cards to use in identifying the parts of speech. I use the sentences in the teacher's manual as provided. He loves it! It's a short lesson, but it's laying a good groundwork for him!
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Tina P.
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FWIW, I majored in English in college and professionally wrote until after I had my second child. And I didn't *get* Lingua Mater. I tried. I tried to like it but it didn't make logical sense to me. And we had a great foundation from CHC grammar all the way through until about 6th grade.
Then we tried Winston because my first son, the one who is hardest for me to find a program to fit, is an aural/tactile learner. I thought that by playing with the parts of speech in his hands, he'd grasp (literally and figuratively) the meaning of why certain words went where and how you can change an adjective to an adverb and all the other ins and outs of grammar. It didn't stick. However, Jen, you've got me thinking that perhaps I should pull it out again for our "fun" school days for the younger kids.
There's also this cool Linguistic Legos site to try with a hands-on appeal. But you *do* have to come up with your own sentences and I know you said you were looking for simplicity.
He spent a year doing Easy Grammar and all of a sudden his writing is more clear (I can't say the same for his penmanship  ). Maybe it's a timing thing.
When I was in school, I didn't do diagramming until I was in 10th grade. But by then, it was all intuitive for me. So maybe that's the ticket. Your child has to be presented with the right material, whatever it is, at the right time. But I can't tell you what that is. I don't think anyone really can. By trial and error, by willing to flex when things get too strange for one or both of you, that's often how you find out what works.
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kathleenmom
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Thanks all. I was an English Major as an undergraduate as well, Tina. However, I wouldn't be able to tell you how and with what textbooks I was taught grammar. It was wholly intuitive for me. That's why I came here, because I knew all you clever ladies would have some excellent suggestions for me. I'll examine them and find what works best for my dd.
Many thanks,
Kathleen
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Angel
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My 7th grade ds is using Our Mother Tongue by Nancy Wilson. I really like this book. It is clear and concise, contains interesting historical sidebars, and takes its sentences from real literature. It is only grammar, and it does contain diagramming. My ds does not complain when he works on it, which is A Big Deal. I also tried Lingua Mater with him at the beginning of the year -- mostly because I thought it was nice to have the writing included -- but we ditched it pretty early on. It didn't seem to be a good fit for boys.
However, I was also trying to use Lingua Mater 6 with my 10 yo dd, who is not a reluctant writer at all and gets all this language stuff pretty easily. But we stopped using the regular text and switched to the consumable grammar supplement only. I think Lingua Mater 6 was just too confusing for her, or it felt too artificial or... something.
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margot helene
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Sorry it's causing you so much trauma Kathleen! I've used it for 4 years with 4 very different groups of kids and there are certainly places where different students struggle.
The consumable supplement does not give more grammar instruction, it is just photocopies of all the literature pieces, so that the student can mark them up when asked to locate things in them. It also has all the charts that in the book enlarged (the book asks the student to create the chart on his/her paper), and some exercises that would be too tedious for the student to write out.
I've often wondered if LM 7 works for me because I'm the one who created it and it fits my teaching style, etc. Maybe there is something I add when I use it that is not able to be expressed in print - I don't know. So, I've been amazed that so many others have been able to use it. We have supplemented it with several different things. When there is a grammar concept they don't get, we stop and go over it more using grammar workbooks, like Exercises in English, or by taking sentences from their reading. I also don't worry if some things take more than a week. If you are doing it in 6th grade, taking 2 weeks per lesson, then you have lots of time to supplement it. It may just take more verbalizing and showing examples. I also recommend possibly setting LM 7 aside until 7th grade. I think there is a developmental jump there that may help.
I deeply apologize to those of you for whom it didn't make sense. Every so often I hear someone say it didn't work for a boy student. I find that funny because the whole way through as I was picking out lit pieces I thought I was putting in too many boy topics! (All the pictures but one were chosen by CHC.) Some people have complained that the student is asked to tell his/her feelings about something and "boys don't like that." I do ask for first-gut reactions to every piece in the book, and I stand by that activity as an introductory activity for looking at art. Art is supposed to get a reaction out of you . . . it's supposed to evoke an emotion . . . even male artists/poets want you to feel something. The point is to move students past saying that they like or dislike something, to saying WHY - evaluating their opinion, so it is not just opinion throwing around, but some kind of reasoning going on.
LM 6 is simply the 6th grade portion of Intermediate Language Lessons with the extra supplement added in. If you like ILL, you'd like LM 6. If her approach drives you nuts, well, you'll go nuts with LM 6  I tried to better explain Serl's writing assignments and cut out a lot of outdated stuff. I recommend supplementing at 6th grade with Sentence Composing for Elementary Students by Killoran. It's an organic way (using writing in context of model sentences) to learn the use of phrases and clauses, etc. My students who did that first before LM 7 did much better with LM 7.
Another source to think about is Michael Clay Thompson's English books. I've started using them to supplement ILL and to review after LM 8.
However, if you just want the nitty-gritty grammar, then you can't go wrong with something like Winston's, Shurley, or Analytic Grammar. They are admirable programs!
Blessings,
Margot
P.S. I hope you all don't mind me responding to this post. I did't mean it to be a defensive post, and so I hope it doesn't come across that way! I feel a lot of guilt if someone buys the book and it doesn't work out.  I know how horrible it can be to be struggling with something that is not working for your student.
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kathleenmom
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Margot,
Your post didn't come across as the slightest bit defensive. I, for one, truly appreciate the recommendations and clarification. I can't thank you enough. It's very obvious that LM is a labor of love, and that you certainly were very thoughtful about its construction.
I think I may try some of your recommendations and come back to it next year.
God bles,
Kathleen
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amarytbc
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LM has worked beautifully for our family and it's one of my favorite programs, but I have to admit that our children do begin it with a strong grammar background.
I bought Shurley English 6 about 10 or 12 years ago when it first came out and after teaching the method to myself, I've used it to teach each of the children beginning in third grade. It's been a very simple and painless way to teach grammar.
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Angel
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margot helene wrote:
I deeply apologize to those of you for whom it didn't make sense. Every so often I hear someone say it didn't work for a boy student. I find that funny because the whole way through as I was picking out lit pieces I thought I was putting in too many boy topics! (All the pictures but one were chosen by CHC.) Some people have complained that the student is asked to tell their feelings about something and "boys don't like that." I do ask for first-gut reactions to every piece in the book, and I stand by that activity as an introductory activity for looking at art. Art is supposed to get a reaction out of you . . . it's supposed to evoke an emotion . . . even male artists/poets want you to feel something. The point is to move students past saying that they like or dislike something, to saying WHY - evaluating their opinion, so it is not just opinion throwing around, but some kind of reasoning going on.
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You know, to be honest, I don't think it was the art and art response that my ds objected to. In fact, I'm not really sure why he didn't like the book... I think it was just that the literature selections maybe weren't quite his cup of tea, and he has this "thing" about writing. I actually bought LM after previewing it and thought it would work much better for us than a workbook *because* of the literature... so I'm not sure really what happened there. I've been thinking of introducing it to my dd next year possibly, because I think it will fit her style better... and as you pointed out, Margot, LM 6 and 7 are a lot different in terms of style.
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Michiel
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I have a degree in English and graduate work in linguistics. I diagram sentences for fun. And I have a ds, 5th grade, who cannot tell a subject from a predicate! I honestly think that the best teachers are those who struggled with the subject themselves, and I never struggled with grammar. But I'm a great long division teacher!
Anyway, I'm still casting about, trying to decide how to tackle this grammar challenge, and I'm trying something out beginning last week: we play different grammar games every day. Mad Libs one day, just to get comfortable with parts of speech, and various other things. I picked up a couple of grammar game books and will try out as many as possible. Today's game involved my writing several subjects and predicates on cards, turning them face down, and then letting ds identify subj. or pred., and mix and match for crazy sentences. He enjoyed it, though it's obvious he needs more work.
The funny thing is that he speaks perfectly, absolutely perfectly. It's just that when it comes to writing, there are all these runons and fragments, and I wonder whether this is even an issue for his age. But even if it's not, shouldn't he be able to know the parts of speech in order to address this at a later time?
I just don't want him to hate English. If this game thing doesn't work out, I think I'll take a look at some of these other programs for next year. I'm glad this post was around now.
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Tina P.
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Michiel wrote:
| I honestly think that the best teachers are those who struggled with the subject themselves, and I never struggled with grammar. |
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I agree wholeheartedly. Another factor in the teaching children puzzle is to appeal to HOW they learn. For instance, if you have an auditory (not that your son is, I'm just using my guinea pig ... or ... son , I mean, as an example) learner and you are a visual learner, you have to be able to sort of bend your mind to that child's mode of thinking. Find out what turns on his mental muscle.
One thing that helped my auditory son was to learn to use his auditory preferences to my advantage. Thus, out came books on tape as well as many, many read-alouds. And something that cemented parts of speech in his mind was Schoolhouse Rock.
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Mackfam
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DITTO!  We love Schoolhouse Rock.
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Jen Mackintosh
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ALmom
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A lot of my kids are visual, big picture learners and I am a detail freak and very auditory. I love words. They want action. It has taken a long time for me to figure out how to work with these folks. As soon as I start explaining - their eyes start glazing. A lot of those discussion geared things are tough for them (still think it is good for them, but it isn't their most efficient way to learn new material, iywim). Lots of words throw them for a loop until they have a big picture in their mind first.
We did use Winston (after trying just about everything else under the sun) - but even more than the specific program, I found it was putting several sentences on the a board for them to look at - and every sentence using the same word - but in a different part of speech. Lining it all up there together, seemed to unlock that mental block so they could get down to understanding the nitty gritty.
Perhaps Winston helped because the words were few (other than the sentence that you marked up) there weren't a lot of wordy details, nor discussions to divert from the main point, nor.
If I had it to do over, I might go back and do Winston as grammar but intersperse with more of the discussion/writing type things with a more literary flavor that are in programs like the one you mention.
The boy/girl thing - I'm not sure it is as much boy/girl as it is learning style. My kinesthetic learners just can barely stand to read anything that is not action packed - and well all these stories are so sweet - Seton, CHC, Lingua Mater but it is more dialogue and description - not a lot of action. I love them. My kids need to be encouraged to appreciate these as well - but again small doses go over better.
If I want them enticed to literature, then I have to have knights with swords clashing and hardly a pause in the action. I can occassionally sneak in something else to expand their horizons - but on a daily basis, they just hate literature.
Janet
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Topic: abandoning Lingua Mater
