Grammar Text

Intended for use in first and second grades, the 200 completely-scripted lessons in this textbook are a complete guide in "How to Teach English to Young Children". The non-consumable book is actually a textbook for the teacher rather than the student. Lessons are completely secular and include portions of classic poems, stories and rhymes. Also included are original poems and stories as well as a few selections that have been adapted for young children. Pictures are black-and-white line drawings rather than photographs or color reproductions.

Each day's lesson is taught to the student, interactively, utilizing no workbooks or photocopied worksheets. The teacher is an integral part of this course, which combines direct instruction with regular drill and review. First grade lessons are almost completely oral with a Montessori-feel to them. Montessori classrooms use a repetition technique that has been applied to the lesson scripts when a new concept is introduced to the child. The course begins with very simple, very short lessons and builds into longer lessons with very short copywork assignments by the end of the year. Second grade lessons incorporate more pencil-and-paper writing, with some written copywork each day. Composition exercises are oral throughout, focusing on narration from short stories, poetry, and pictures. Poetry memorization selections are short and rhyming, which should make it enjoyable for most students. In addition, many lessons include enrichment suggestions for students who find their lessons comfortably easy. A variety of activities keeps the student engaged from the beginning to the end of each day's lesson and from week to week throughout the course.

In the introduction, Mrs. Wise writes, "I believe we underestimate what young children are capable of learning. We can grow children who exceed the average by exposing them to above-average content-----as long as that content is taught patiently, frequently, and consistently, and is reviewed often." There are educators who think that formal grammar and language study is more suited to later elementary school, but Mrs. Wise shows us how to make English class both productive and enjoyable in the earliest years. An excellent, early foundation in English can provide the necessary background for deeper study in following years as well as foreign language study in elementary school. This book gives the teaching parent everything (s)he needs to provide that foundation.

The very first lesson in first grade is completely oral and introduces the concept of a noun; it takes less than 10 minutes to complete. The early lessons in second grade include an oral teaching part, a written copywork part, drill and review, and poetry memorization. There is a distinct change from the beginning of the book to the end. Some lessons focus completely on picture study (oral composition), and others are just poetry study.

The lessons include both picture study and narration. I didn't find the pictures especially inspiring, but they are "family-type", "everyday-situation-type" of drawings set in current times. I thought the most valuable part of First Language Lessons was that it teaches the mother HOW to get the most out of a picture study by providing a lengthy list of guiding questions. It should be easier for a mother new to this idea to branch out to other pictures after gaining some experience and confidence.

This simple and charming Catholic workbook provides basic explanations, practices and reinforcement of basic grammar concepts for the third grade. Students practice identifying sentence parts and complete sentences, capitalization, using question marks and "asking words", sentences that command or exclaim, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, nouns and proper nouns, capitalizing God's the names of God and special titles of Our Lady, singular and plural, possessive nouns, action verbs and "state of being" verbs, past and present tense, helping verbs, verbs that change form, subject and predicate, roots and verb endings, prefixes and suffixes, contractions and abbreviations, syllables, adjectives, pronouns, titles of respect, alphabetizing and the dictionary.

The text includes pen and ink illustrations, Catholic poetry and a complete answer key.

This is a complete English program written for 7th grade, but can easily be adapted for 6th and 8th graders as well. Although it is written to be used in one year, the author has given details of how it can be broken down into a two year program.

Margot Davidson has taken beautiful Literature pieces, paintings and poems, and incorporated them into a program to teach English. By using narration, copy work, Literature analysis, discussion, and grammar, your child will come away with an understanding of how sentences, paragraphs, poems and stories are put together. The approach is gentle yet the writing assignments require higher order thinking than any comparable English program on the market. Lingua Mater would be a wonderful next step for those using Primary Language Lessons, Intermediate Language Lessons or Stories with a View. Lessons are perfect for your Middle School child and the text is a wonderful preparation for the High School years which will require more in-depth analysis and writing.

The student book is broken down into four Units and each Unit has nine weeks. The student book is not meant to be written in, but there is permission for you to photocopy for your own family. (Or you can purchase the supplement from Hillside Education, which has all the work done for you, photocopies would cost you much more.)There are rubrics to help you determine your child's writing abilities and checklists for your child to use himself to evaluate whether he has completed his writing assignments accordingly. The teacher's guide is wonderful and includes examples of the types of answers you are looking for from your child's grammar and discussion work.

Hurray to Mrs. Davidson for putting out a product which will be a treasure to Catholic home school parents for years to come!

A very simple and lovely grammar book based on the text First Grammar Lessons written by Charlotte Mason in 1928. The text is illustrated with charming 19th century drawings which are used within the text for exercises such as: completing sentences and making sentences of certain types and telling stories using certain parts of speech. The text is intended for fourth grade and up (the Charlotte Mason method recommends waiting until then for formal grammar studies - focusing on reading and narration earlier). It is simple enough to be used as a "lap-text" for the earlier grades as well (for mother and child to work on together in an informal manner). I found the explanations to be very good at helping children understand what the different parts of speech are used for.