For our seventh installment in the series on "What We Do" in our homeschool, today we are going to be discussing the language arts with a focus on grammar. Grammar is a dull subject but one that is nessisary for clear writing and speaking. If you haven't seen our other post in the series or would like to catch up
My Approach to Grammar
We have always done grammar pretty much the same way, by pointing it out from time to time while reading, and by correcting our writing at times. As we go through the language arts it's easy to see how they are intertwined, you can't really work on one without touching on another. Grammar is a great example of this.
As I touched on last week, reading quality materials is essential to learning grammar. Kids will frequently imitate what they have read before moving on to crafting their writing independently. Having books that use the grammar skills that you want them to reproduce in their writing is an important first step. This is why even at Kate's age I expect her to listen to the chapter books that we read for our read aloud time. She will not understand all the vocabulary, and sometimes she even loses the story line, however, she will begin to internalize sentence structure and the way that words flow setting the ground work for learning grammar.
Brave Writer is instramental for this process. While we don't do the copywork, because of the dysgraphia that several of the kids display, we do carefully look over the copywork pieces and discuss the capitalization, the punctuation, and any thing of note in them. We also use their literary elements to point out good writing techniques. Even Kate, who is barely reading, recognizes using periods "to say your sentence is done and commas tell you to take a breath when you are reading." She has learned this from listening to Brave Writer copywork analysis.
Once they are old enough and we begin discussing grammar and literary elements, I ask them to try them out in their own writing. Sometimes that might mean finding a way to work in aliteration in their free writing time that week, or perhaps that means using and adjective clause in their weekly writing assignment. It also means that after we have worked on composition in our writing and like the way we have said a thing, then we sit down and edit. Sometimes we free write and don't edit at all, but when we do edit, I try to stress this is like a secondary subject. Remember I want them to feel confident in their composition first and then present editing as a way to clean up our writing to make it more understandable for others.
This is because while writing is a solitary activity, it's put forth for others to read and interact with. Whether that interaction is them studying a text to learn more about biology, or me reading their history analysis to see what they grasp from their studies, or even them enjoying a fanfic piece online. People seldom write in a vacuum, even those of us who journal, may censor ourselves incase our writing is ever read by another. Writing is a form of communication, and as such grammar is that part of our writing that makes it accessable to others.
How I Teach Grammar
While the basics of teaching grammar are the same for every level, the intensity changes depending on ability. You might notice this isn't something that nessisarily I change based on age. That is because I've found that my students vary greatly in how much grammar they catch at varies ages. Sometimes they seem to grasp the basic parts of language and basic grammar rules without a concess effort. One of my girls just started writing that way without any instruction, and one day after a year or two of writing, she asked, "Why do we capitalize these types of words and the beginning of sentences anyway." It was only at that point that we really started talking about grammar rules with her. Another of my students didn't pick up on these things from his reading and so we made it a point to discuss each rule or part of speach at a time and begin requiring it in his own writing. Even now, years later, some of my students self edit as they go, while others don't consistantly captialize words until they go back and begin editing.
When we are just starting out I love discriptive grammar books, not to be confused with an actual textbook. Ruth Heller has a series of grammar books they are beautiful illustrated and give some many clear and practical examples of varies parts of speach and grammar rules in a way that is easy to comprehend. I pull these books out every so often with all of my kids, but especially focus on them with the younger kids. Brian P. Cleary also writes similar books and I have used his as well. The idea is to have a fun but practical way to address what is often a boring subject, so that it sticks. Another fun resource to use for this is School House Rock and other music videos that teach grammar. When reviewing things like adverbial clauses, Open Tent Academy classes often pull a video or two in to put the rules into their students minds in a way that is hard to forget.
As the kids begin doing writing on their own and we turn our attention to more than just composition. We pick a rule for them to use each day in their writing. Maybe we start with something like verbs for singular verses plural words, something fairly simple but that makes a big impact in their writing. After they master this over a few sessions of writing, we might add verb tenses so that they don't swap from past to future tense back and forth in a single paragraph. The idea isn't that they write flawlessly each time, I still go back to edit my own writing and catch inconsistent verb tenses, but that they learn to identify when they make slip ups in their writing so that they can correct them.
Before long, I introduce editing marks, and expect them to figure out the mistake that I've pointed out to them. I don't spell the word correctly or give them the correct verb tense, but mark it for them to re-read and solve. This is probably the longest step in learning grammar. All the while we keep introducing more difficult concepts and literary elements, such as how to use a semicolon or how to hook a reader in with a first sentence and a strong title.
Eventually we get to a point were they edit their own writing before coming to me to have me catch the edits. Moving to this step is the most difficult, something that my high schoolers are just starting to do; they are moving from depending on me to edit to being self-sufficient. This is a skill they need to develop by graduation, because I won't be with them in college or the work force to edit their writing. I remind them that sometimes I still get in a hurry and miss editing or occasionally even forget to edit and have to make corrections later. It's a life long process.
I'm actually planning next year to take an intensive review of grammar and spelling for my highschoolers' English class. They have come a long way in writing, but there are still some areas that we can polish up so that their writing is stronger even before editing. I also hope that it helps them to catch more in the self-editing stage so that little is left for me to edit at the end. After all, as I remind myself frequently the goal in raising children is that one day you work yourself out of a job and they don't need you anymore. The same is just as true as a teacher. I guide and instruct in the hopes that one day, they have mastered all I can teach them, and they surpass me.
In Conclusion
Grammar is a class that is primarily taught through repetition. It builds through the years, and as such I don't greatly stress how far along the kids are at a given moment, knowing that they are steadily improving. That improvement often comes in starts and stops, leaping forward and occasionally seeming to regress before progressing again. It is a long view of the subject, but one that we steadily work on in quiet ways, rather than in a focused push. By incorporating it into our reading through Brave Writer, we can point out examples of literary elements and grammar rules done well for immulation. And then by giving them goals to use in their own writing through the Composition Checklist that Open Tent Academy uses in their writing classes, they practice using these things on their own. This two prong approach to what we do for grammar has served us well over the years.
For the final language arts post, remember to check back next week's for the eighth post in the series What We Do: Spelling.
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