Grammar: When, Why, and How, Mama
Ruth Beechick said, “After children write well, sometime in their teen years, they can learn some grammar so they will be educated about it. They will not have been burned out on it, and they may actually enjoy it at that time.”
Sounds like a nice, relaxed approach.
We like to take it easy, too. So from the time our kids can write until the time they graduate, we use simple grammar/language arts workbooks in their curriculum. If they need extra help, we find it among the hundreds of resources available. If their goals include being an English major or something similar, then they will need to learn more extensive grammar in the high school years. A couple of the kids took outside writing classes in the high school years, and that helped them pay more attention to their grammar.
In the real world, they basically needed to know how to
- Express their ideas clearly.
- Write those ideas with proper grammar and structure.
It isn’t as difficult as we like to make it, especially when we do a little bit each year and build on it as we go.
Don’t be anxious about tomorrow or about grammar.
Here is the Biblical cure to anxiety: PRAYER (Philippians 4:6-7). Don’t skip over that. Don’t put that thought aside. Put everything else aside. Lay your anxiety and stress at the foot of the cross, and pray RIGHT NOW for your children that they would walk in Truth. That is all that matters for eternity.
~Deborah
Here is more grammar help from TOS:
Is Diagramming Sentences Puzzling to You?, Jennifer L. Padgett
Teaching Grammar and Spelling: Important and Even Possible, Dawn Burnette
Who Needs Grammar, Ruth Beechick
Contemplating Grammar, Andrew Pudewa
Making Grammar Fun, Ruth O’Neill
Awesome Grammar Resources, Nancy Doran
Deborah Wuehler is the Senior Editor and Director of Production here at The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine. She would say she is a very ordinary homeschool mom–with one exception: she has an extraordinary God Who provides all she needs for life and homeschooling. She has eight children aged 11 to 29. Deborah’s mission is this: to point other homeschoolers to the Lord in all they do, think, and feel—and to confirm that they, too, can find everything they need for life, godliness, and homeschooling in their knowledge of Him (2 Peter 1:3-4).
