Posted in Spell to Write and Read
Easy Grammar and Daily Grams
Hot off the press, newest edition 2007
copyright!
I am really
excited about the brand new editions of Easy Grammar and Daily Grams by Wanda Philips just released this
January 2007.
The
good teaching and well planned out format of the original texts have been
maintained, while additional concepts have been included. For example, the new Daily
Grams books (grades
5 and 6) include 6 items per day (rather than 5); this allows for more
review. Also, the new texts (grades 5 through 7) include analogies (and how to do them) and spelling rules (with cyclic review).
The great
thing about the spelling rule review is that the author reviews spelling rules
in the Daily Grams
books (starting at the 5th grade level) as per Spell to Write and
Read, because
she is Spalding trained. This is
an excellent feature for all SWR users.
Everything I have seen in the books matches up with SWR so far. Ie. She does a lot of adding on a word ending “ing” or “less”
and you have to apply different rules for 3 different words. Y’s exchange rule, E’s dropping, or the
1-1-1 and 2-1-1 rule etc! She even
defines the rules in the same terms that SWR users are so familiar with.
Easy
Grammar texts
use the prepositional approach combined with effective strategies. This helps
students to understand grammar, a tool for speaking and writing properly. The Easy Grammar text is the teaching text where all
new material is presented and practiced.
The Daily Grams text is the review text, intended to be used for the first 10 minutes
of a grammar lesson as a warm up.
However,
many homeschoolers have not found it necessary to use the two texts at the same
time. In order to get more mileage
from these corresponding texts, many homeschoolers do Easy Grammar Grade 3 (for example) in the first
year. Then in the next year, they
do Daily Grams Grade 3, which is a review year with even shorter work to do, but still good
teaching. Then you go back to Easy
Grammar Grade 4 the
following year, then Daily Grams Grade 4 the next year. Another option would be to do Easy
Grammar during the
school year and save the Daily Grams as a summer review book.
I decided
to try this every other year approach with Easy Grammar with my own children to start
with. I didn’t place them by exact
grade level in Easy Grammar, but am using their mastery level in the WISE Guide combined with their grade level
placement on the spelling diagnostic test to decide placement. My youngest two school age children are
ages 5 and 7 and do their SWR lessons together. At this writing they both place at section L in the WISE
Guide with a grade
level of 3.5 on the spelling diagnostic.
They are starting the Easy Grammar Grade 2 book and doing very well with it (even ask to do extra
pages some days!)
The next
set of boys, ages 9 and 10, take SWR lessons together, and place at about
section S in the WISE Guide and average a 6.0 grade level score on the spelling
diagnostic. This lively pair
of boys (come and see!) are starting the Easy Grammar Grade 5. Prior to working in this Easy Grammar book they learned grammar through
the enrichments in the Wise Guide, and through writing.
They have fallen quite easily into this Grade 5 Easy Grammar book and I am both pleased and
amazed at how quickly they are learning all the parts of speech, and
effortlessly diagramming sentences.
I really like this prepositional approach to studying grammar. It seems to me that when I learned
grammar (if I ever did) in public school they always taught us the noun and
verb first. Then a bit about
adjectives and adverbs (which I never could get straight as a child.) I recall looking at sentences and
wondering what all the other parts that seemed to be just “hanging there” were. (They were prepositional phrases, of
course, and if I had been taught to cross out the prepositional phrases first
as in Easy Grammar,
I might have had an easier time finding and labeling all the other parts of
speech.)
Next year
when the 9 and 10 year old are done with Easy Grammar Grade 5, I plan to have them work through Daily
Grams Grade 5 for review. Since they will have a light year
of grammar the year they do Daily Grams, I am going to give them a “heavy load” of writing
with formal study through IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing). For more information on IEW go to http://www.writing-edu.com/
My older
high school boys, ages 14 and 17, who have had a lot of grammar in years past
are doing the Junior/Senior High Daily Grams book for review and use it in conjunction with Learning
Grammar Through Writing, which is a dictionary of language rules and practice. We
have tabbed the most used sections of the book such as capitalization and
punctuation rules and the boys look these up as they do the corresponding sections
in Daily Grams. If you cannot easily obtain the Learning Grammar Through Writing, you could also use another
complete grammar book that you have on hand at home as a reference while doing Daily
Grams.
By far the
most thorough way to use these books is first with Easy Grammar as the teaching text, and Daily
Grams as the review
text. Do your research as see
which combination of these grammar books will work best for you and your
family!
©Britta
McColl
Mom to 7
exuberant children
Endorsed
SWR Trainer
Morning
Star Learning
A
homeschool mom who just started both Easy Grammar and Daily Grams with her daughter wrote me:
At
first I was contemplating just skipping the assessment test as I don't do many
tests with them, but then I thought it might be fun to be able to look back at
our progress, so Sarah took the assessment test.
I
was actually kind of surprised at how much of the other grammar program she
hadn't retained (I didn't tell her that though). I think this mastery
approach without all the bouncing around will be much better. I’m
planning to have her do all the preposition worksheets so she memorizes the
prepositions well and then go from there. Then I'll have her do one
worksheet of Easy
Grammar per
day and one Daily Gram per day, so she doesn't forget her capitalization etc. while she
is learning new concepts. She is super happy with Easy Grammar as this is still FAR
less than
she was doing in the other grammar program everyday even though I had let her
do every other problem.
Several
days later she wrote:
I
timed Sarah on the Daily Grams and Easy Grammar. The Daily Grams took her 2 minutes and the Easy
Grammar took
her 7 minutes for a grand total of 9 minutes. Pretty painless, huh?
I didn't need to present anything new that day, but I estimate that it would be
around 12-15 minutes total if she had a new concept. Does she EVER love
this!!!
Christina
Firezar, home school mom of 6
You can go
to www.easygrammar.com and read more, see sample pages of
the books, and look at video clips of the author, Wanda Philips, explaining her
program.
For a
complete line of Easy Grammar and Daily Grams at a discount visit www.morningstarlearning.com
Easy Grammar:
Daily Guided Teaching
and
Review for Grade 2
Hot off the press, newest edition 2007 copyright!
This book
is a teaching text with the Daily Grams format.
It is the only book in the series that follows this format. The rest of the books in the series are
separated out into either Easy Grammar, which is the teaching text with practice exercises, and Daily
Grams, which is
the review text.
q an ideal introduction to the
understanding of language usage and skills
q 180 short, enjoyable lessons--one
per school day
q concepts introduced and reviewed
throughout
q capitalization taught or reviewed
every day
q punctuation taught or reviewed
daily
q also includes usage, dictionary
skills, sentence combining, etc.
I
recommend this book for a second grader who is very well established at
spelling, writing, and reading. If
your child is weak in any of these three key areas, I would concentrate on
their SWR work and wait to begin this book until they are in 3rd or
4th grade. In terms of
SWR, I would not place them in this book unless they had a mastery of about
List K--- List M in the WISE Guide.
This is a
charming first grammar text for your beginner. Pages are clean, well laid out; the student begins to see
the patterns of each lesson, and knows what concept is being worked on in which
section of the page. It should
only take about 10-15 minutes a day, and a lot of ground will be covered!
In this bundle you will get both the Teacher Edition with answer key and the Student Workbook. If you need to purchase a Student Workbook for an additional student, keep shopping. You will find it listed separately.
Daily Grams
Hot off the press, newest edition 2007 copyright!
Daily
Grams: Guided Review Aiding Mastery Skills
texts have been designed as a 5-10 minute, daily review to be used at the
beginning of every lesson along side the Easy Grammar text. Students use concepts learned in
capitalization, punctuation, and other areas on a daily basis. This process promotes mastery learning.
The
format of these books are clean and predictable which helps to eliminate those
“what next?” questions that sometimes slow down learning. The first question will have
capitalization errors to correct, the second question will have punctuation
errors to correct, the third section has a parts-of-speech question, the fourth
may be a usage question, and the fifth section may include three words to apply
to a spelling rule, or a dictionary skill, and the sixth section may include
two or three sentences to be combined together.
For a
complete line of Easy Grammar and Daily Grams at a discount along with detailed product
descriptions of each level visit www.morningstarlearning.com
If
you are a home school mom or teacher and need help with how to teach spelling,
reading, or writing visit these other links on my blog:
What Is Spell to Write and Read (SWR)?
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/66553/
How (and why) I Got Started With SWR
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/66558/
Spell to Write and Read and Special Needs
http://homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/93920/
You CAN Do It-Spell to Write and Read
DVD-New Release!
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/151329/
Cursive First
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/74689/
SWR and Preschoolers
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/74652/
Does SWR Work for Wiggly Willys?
http://homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/64551/
Spell to Write and Read vs. Spelling Power
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/MorningStarLearning/110789/
To purchase a full line of SWR products go to: www.morningstarlearning.com
