Comments

Posted by DreweLlyn

The only purpose I see in diagramming sentences is that it creates a visual image of the parts of speech. Why know the parts of speech? The only time I can truly say that came in handy was when we were overseas and were trying to learn another language. Those slavic words change forms depending on where they are in a sentence and what part of speech they are. Knowing the parts of speech reasonably well (thanks to homeschooling our children LOL) helped me get that straight in my mind. I'm a very visual learner, however, so it might not help someone else. Would you believe my mom enjoys diagramming sentences?!?!?!?

Cursive verses Print: Someone much smarter than I needs to expound on this. Here is my personal: The only time you really need to write in cursive is to sign your name or to take notes quickly. (Of course that latter one may be difficult to read. Ha!) With all the computers and technology around I think people do just fine printing. (I'm sure someone else will be able to put me in my place on this, so I look forward to reading other responses.)

Have a great day!
~ Drewe Llyn

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Posted by underhiswings

I always enjoyed diagramming sentences, but have not taught my children how to do this. They have learned sentence structure just by our reading and as we have gone along in school where they have needed it. My daughter is a writer, my son is not inclined this way.

As for cursive, I have not pressed on this either. I have beautiful penmanship from sitting and practicing for my degree. My daughter loves lettering as an artform and had a calligraphy class and therefor can handle cursive much better. My son on the other hand prefers to print. He does have a slight learning disability in the area of writing so I know that he will not be one who will pursue a lot of writing so why go there. All this to say, for us it depends upong the child. You are teaching a child, not a curriculum.

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Posted by LizziSmile

Well, I just had to comment on this one. Being a linguist and a lover of languages, I may be slightly biased, but I do think it is important to teach children about sentence structure, parts of speech, etc. That being said, "rocket-ship" diagrams are totally inadequate for most sentences anyway, and I think they end up confusing most kids more than anything else. There are other methods, like tree diagrams, that are much clearer and more efficient (also more fun). I'm not sure about an elementary school curriculum that uses this, as I didn't see it until college, but it makes SO much more sense; I don't understand why schools still use the rocket ship method.
As far as cursive, I agree with the other posters that it doesn't seem to be all that important as long as they can sign their name. I happen to enjoy it, but most adults I know don't even differentiate between cursive and printing; they have their own handwriting that is usually a combination of both. My opinion: once a child enters Jr. High or High School, school assignments should be typed anyway, so how they want to write other things is up to them.
Elizabeth :)

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Posted by lotsapets

I don't think sentence diagramming or cursive writing will be needed by the majority as adults. I don't know that I'll even teach diagramming since we tackle grammar with fun books. I think typing skills will be much more important to our children than cursive writing, having said that then need to be able to read cursive since many people, especially older relatives it seems, write cards and letters in cursive.

Enjoyed catching up with your blog today. I have been getting behind on my reading.

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Posted by sdacrew

When I was a kid and I had to diagram sentences, it was confusing and meaningless to me. Now that I'm older, I understand the concept of diagramming and it is interesting. If I were going to teach diagramming, I might not do until my children were mid to late high school, depending on their learning style. Some students think in diagrams and it would make sense.

One day when I was teaching seventh grade, I wrote the spelling words in cursive on the board. It caused an uproar that took me an hour to settle! 50% of the class could not read cursive, and several couldn't remember how to write in cursive. Cursive was a novelty.

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Posted by homeschoolgarden

My husband (who is a pastor we are church planting in Quebec, Canada) still prefers printing! He prints as quickly as I write cursive. I never understood why, I have seen his handwriting on the rare paper or two over these fifteen years of marriage.

My son (13) writes in cursive but prefers to print when writing his stories.
Genetic link???? This is quite interesting.
It would be interesting to research this...

Be blessed,
Angie

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Posted by KittyKorner

Thanks for voting.
~Candace

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Posted by rosehillranch

I just sent an email your way, and forgot to mention that I also have a teaching degree and taught 1st grade in public school for 2 years. (I've never done this type of thing with sentences though, but it looks interesting.) Just wanted you to know we have something else in common! Love, Jeani

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Posted by jayfromcleveland

Hi Karen, Debbie and I were just reading your blog and I told her I don't even know what that means, to diagram a sentence. So she showed me and I'd never seen such a thing. All those years of public school, down the drain!

As for cursive, I got bad marks for penmanship all through grade school and finally in 7th grade, I start printing everything. I can print just as quick as anyone can write cursive, and if my old teachers could see it now, I'd still get bad marks for penmanship! IMHO, cursive is for girls, as is neat handwriting in general!

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