Grammar 5 & 6
by Amber (Densmer) Baker
About this Product
About This Product
These two “new” grammar programs are actually based on Activity Sheets that we used to sell with our old Language Arts program. In 2007ish, we completely re-did Language Arts due to a number of complaints about our old program… there wasn’t enough instruction, too much grammar, the topics covered were too random, etc. So we reworked things to refocus our LA instruction on writing rather than grammar…and then, wouldn’t ya know: we received comments that some customers missed the old way we practiced Grammar.
So I started with the old Activity Sheets from LA 5 and 6 to resurrect the old grammar, and reworked them to address some of those old complaints. What follows is a synopsis of how I fixed things.
- The old program lacked easily-accessible instruction.
- All instruction was contained in an appendix called the Grammar Guide. Mom would then use the Grammar Guide to introduce new topics to her children.
- What I changed:
- I wrote new instruction and examples that appear on the new Activity Sheet that first introduces a particular topic. This way, the Activity Sheets almost speak for themselves, and require less parent prep-time.
- The Grammar Guide now serves as a handy reference tool than the main teaching guide…though on a few occasions, we’ll ask Mom to introduce a topic from the Grammar Guide (e.g. commas).
- This same new instruction also appears on Mom’s corresponding Answer Guide page for easy reference.
- Reassigned the “guiding force” of this program in order to simultaneously increase its flexibility and balance.
- Flexibility: In the old program, everything was tied to (and driven by) the Reader Schedule. We pulled passages from the specific reading assignments the kids were working on each week, figured out the grammar we could teach from those passages, and then taught it. While it’s good make many connections between different learning activities kids experience each day, our different 4-Day/5-Day reading assignments made creating one program that ALL of our customers could use without “giving away the plot” of the Readers an organizational headache!
- What I changed:
- I “divorced” this program from the Reader schedule for each program, so when mom uses this program is less of a requirement—she can work on grammar when it best fits her schedule.
- I kept the old dictation passages (so they still get the benefit of learning grammar from something familiar), but as I “divorced” the sequence of the passages, I also made sure that we wouldn’t give away the plot of the story—just in case Mom has decided to use, say, Grammar 5 with LA5 and Core 5.
- Balance: In the old programs, the number of topics we might ask Mom to introduce in a given day varied from no topics for a number of weeks to as many as 5 topics in a given day. The number and depth of questions we asked the kids varied widely from sheet to sheet—anywhere from 5-12 questions at a time.
- What I changed:
- I redesigned the sequence and balanced the rate of introduced topics. We now only introduce one big topic, or a few smaller, related topics per Sheet. Periodically, we introduce a smaller topic within the context of a question.
- “We” introduce the topics via the new Activity Sheet instruction—we only ask mom to introduce topics on her own every now and then.
- I audited every question to keep the “gems”, reduce the frequency with which we reviewed some topics, and wrote new questions to highlight topics we practiced less frequently.
- I replaced the old “Schedule of Topics and Skills” with a new “Skills Matrix” (see attached sample).
- This new table will help mom clearly see all of the skills the program teaches over the course of the year, and exactly which Activity Sheets cover which skills.
- She can also use this table to quickly find an Activity Sheet that highlights a particular skill.
- The Skills Matrix also denotes whether we’re introducing or reviewing a particular skill, or if the skill is used as a part of “analyze the sentence”.
Links
