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Becky Parker
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| Posted: April 03 2014 at 6:29am | IP Logged
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Has anyone tried English Grammar Recitation from Memoria Press? It looks interesting. I'm wondering if it would suffice for a grammar program, or compliment a program like ILL.
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Becky
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 03 2014 at 8:23am | IP Logged
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I looked at it last year, Becky, and then took it off my list, not because it didn't look good (it does), but because I had to hone my budget priorities pretty sharply, and EGR didn't seem as urgent as other things.
I'm dithering a bit about grammar and such right now -- I'm dithering about everything! We didn't do formal grammar this year, which is fine, but as we're starting Latin next year, and my 6th grader is transitioning into a phase where I will be expecting (enabling?) more writing, I'm looking for some review and solidification of the conventions of English usage. ILL was not a hit with my older children, and I eventually sold the book, and the thought of buying it again gives me some pause. I love what it covers. But do we need it? Would we do it if we had it? These are the questions I ask myself.
As an aside, a friend has turned me on to a program called Language Lessons Through Literature -- not to be confused with the older Learning Language Arts Through Literature! This newer program is very CM-ish and looks very well done, though so far she's only published levels 1-3. She hopes to have 4 and 5 (for older elementary) available by fall.
Part of me adores the look of this program. And part of me thinks that even in its CM-ness it seems like too much "program" for us. Last night I spent a lot of time browsing "living" grammar books -- Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves (which now has picture-book spin-offs for children), Woe Is I, The Word Snoop, The Amazing Pop-Up Grammar Book, Let's Eat Grandma, etc (all on my Language Arts Pinterest Board here.) I am thinking right now that I'd rather spend what money I have to spend on things like that, rather than on a structured program. I actually already have Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which my 16-year-old loved when he read it several years ago. I'm thinking my rising 5th and 6th graders would get a huge kick out of it as a read-aloud, with tiny judicial edits -- I remember a couple of very slightly off-color punctuation errors that I'd rather not share with that age group. We've already read (again, judiciously edited) Richard Lederer's Anguished English, which is a laugh -- they get how misplaced commas and modifiers and un-thought-out word choices can throw a writer's intended meaning disastrously off-course.
All that to say -- I could very much see the Memoria Press book as part of a package like that. I like the idea of memorizing grammar rules. You could use them as copywork one day a week as well. The living books provide a lot of the "why" behind the rules -- see what happens when you don't know the rule? You think you're saying one thing, but instead you're saying something else you totally didn't intend, which might cause you to have to join a witness protection program and move to another country, in order to avoid a lifetime of embarrassment. Witness protection program? Or learning the grammar rule? You choose the better road. Etc.
OK, more than you were probably asking. It's that time of year. I'm a total schizophrenic about literally everything we do right now. :)
Sally
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 03 2014 at 9:00am | IP Logged
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I haven't seen it, Becky. It does look intriguing, especially in the sense that I like tying some grammar lessons to our Latin lessons - but I haven't used it.
I do use ILL - but pretty sparingly. I just throw it in a little bit around 4th/5th...just to introduce a few ideas before we start dictation lessons. Once we start dictation, I don't even use ILL.
Since we do little grammar lessons as part of a dictation lesson, or tied to Latin, I only approach grammar formally 3 times in an entire 12 year education (once in late elem, once in middle, and once in high school).
I use Winston Grammar and have for years. Not that you were asking for alternatives!! And definitely not trying to overwhelm and confuse decision making!!! Just mentioning it since it's something that we've applied here with great success within a very CM day - so it fits with short lessons, a variety of learning styles, and within a regular dictation lesson. I like how I can work it in with my dictation lesson so it doesn't become *yet-another-thing-to-get-done-in-a-day*. I've used it for several children now, and I've learned how to use it so its non-consumable, making the whole thing pretty affordable considering I spent $30 on it about 7 years ago...and have now used it for 3 children with 2 still in the queue.
ANYWAY...back to your original question on the Memoria Press program. In general, I'm a fan of MP. I find that their curriculum is one of the easiest for me to shape and work into a day in ways that fit us. So, I wanted to mention that you might consider only purchasing the TM, something I've found that works so well for me through the years. Their TM includes teaching ideas, but it also includes full images of the student pages, most of which is busy work, and the content of which can typically be covered orally. For this particular program, I could envision something like this fitting really well within that common time (like a Morning Basket) - you introducing a grammar rule, then introducing the recitation work as part of your memory work, and then you add that memory work to your regular rotation of memory work.
SO...I don't know if that's helpful at all...but just wanted to throw that idea out there since often times just purchasing the TM can be a budget savings, and in the end, is the most useful tool anyway. But...we don't tend to use any workbooks here, nor do we use programs/curriculum-as-packaged...so that could be just me.
Good luck deciding and come back and review what you think if you end up purchasing! 
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: April 03 2014 at 10:48am | IP Logged
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Sally, I have some of those same living books on my wish list. Using the English Grammar Recitation book along side of a couple of those seems like it would make a really fun grammar year, which I think a couple of my boys need ... I mean the fun part. Grammar has become a bit of a drudgery.
And Jen, YES to the morning basket time! I could see this totally working for my boys. I also really like the money saving idea of only getting the teacher's manual. 
I have to admit I haven't spent too much time in the MP catalog. We use Latina Christiana, Famous Men of Rome and some others, but I usually just purchase them through the other companies I buy curriculum from. However, since I went searching for the writing programs that were discussed in this thread I also spent some time reading through their other offerings. HMMMM, some of this looks really good...
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 03 2014 at 11:25am | IP Logged
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Oh, yeah, maybe that's why I didn't buy it -- because the student book was a workbook, and I tend not to buy teacher's manuals. I may need to rethink that!
Sally
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 07 2014 at 8:06am | IP Logged
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SallyT wrote:
| I'm dithering a bit about grammar and such right now -- I'm dithering about everything! We didn't do formal grammar this year, which is fine, but as we're starting Latin next year, and my 6th grader is transitioning into a phase where I will be expecting (enabling?) more writing, I'm looking for some review and solidification of the conventions of English usage. |
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I know you are considering Visual Latin, and I just thought I would let you know that I walked in on my boys giggling hysterically over Mr. Doug's grammar lesson this morning where he went through several sentences explaining their parts of speech including, "Matthew foolishly told the aliens the national secrets." 
Anyway, I don't know if it would be enough for you, and I am still dithering myself about studying English grammar more formerly for 5th grade, but you came to mind this morning, so I thought I'd throw that out there. If you are worried that the English grammar knowledge is a pre-requisite for the Latin, it is covered in these Latin lessons.
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 07 2014 at 8:55am | IP Logged
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Oh, I know the Latin will cover a lot of ground, and it may well be enough. And I'm fairly prepared to explain anything that needs explaining.
I just . . . like English grammar. For its own sake. I think it's interesting enough to merit its own study. And knowing rules of usage in the way that you know, say, the Memorare, is pretty handy, I think. It's definitely a secondary set of laws to write on people's hearts, but I feel pretty strongly about making sure that they get written! Copywork and reading cover a lot of that territory, and one of my hesitations about any formal grammar program (like LLTL, for example) is that it's just going to be *too* much, when what I want is just a regular touchpoint.
But I don't know that that helps Becky make a decision! I'm leaning strongly towards Our Mother Tongue and living books like the ones I mentioned above. In the schedule I'm roughing out right now, we'd only do one formal English grammar lesson a week, while the real language emphasis would be on Latin.
Sally
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Willa
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| Posted: April 07 2014 at 7:08pm | IP Logged
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I am using English Grammar Recitation. I have the first workbook. It's very simple for my 5th grader, but I like the emphasis on memorizing, because my experience with my older kids was that they could do all the exercises in the grammar books easily, but didn't retain the essential concepts well through the years. They could write and speak grammatically, of course, but didn't hold on to the terminology. So in that way I like MP's approach better than the conventional workbook approach. We do a lot of it orally.
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Topic: English Grammar Recitation
