It seems that grammar instruction takes one of two roads – either no instruction at all, leaving the student with little knowledge of how to utilize the English language. Or the other road that involves dissecting, parsing, and boiling it down until nothing is left but a pile of odds and ends that no one knows what to do with. 

Up until the 1960’s the English language was taught as a science. Primary and secondary schools borrowed some ideas from the linguists playbook. What began as a way to understand the structure of different languages became the nightmare of children everywhere. The idea is that to understand a language we must dissect the sentence and look at it under a microscope to see how it works–a verb is always placed after the noun or subject, “but” begins a subordinate clause and should never begin a sentence… Or maybe we could map out the sentence like a cartographer – circles highlighting words, lines connecting others. 

 It works well for linguists at a university level. Not so much for children who are just building up their vocabularies and the ideas that stand behind those words.

After more than enough time of this practice passed, one university professor noticed his students’ writing got worse after a semester of this kind of grammar instruction. So he decided to put his hypothesis to the test and gave two classes a pre-test and a post-test. His control group received no grammar instruction, while his  experimental group received the instruction he’d been administering to other classes for years. Not surprisingly, the experimental group’s writing became worse after learning how to dissect sentences. 

Other schools began to see the same results, and around the 70’s most educational institutions abandoned this scientific and formulaic type of grammar instruction and replaced it with… nothing. 

It seems nobody had a better idea of how to teach grammar, so most schools did nothing and hoped for the best. 

Students do need grammar and writing instruction, just not the kind most of us are used to. Why study grammar at all? Put simply, grammar is the way language is organized, and to be able to use words to powerfully, and effectively, convey ideas is a skill every person should have. 

So what did Charlotte Mason say?

“[G]rammar, being a study of words and not things, is by no means attractive to the child, nor should he be hurried into it.” (Vol. 1, p. 295)

“Children will probably be slow to receive this first lesson in abstract knowledge, and we must remember that knowledge in this sort is difficult and uncongenial. Their minds deal with the concrete and they have the singular faculty of being able to make concrete images out of the merest gossamer of a fairy tale.” (Vol. 6, p. 210)

“But a child cannot dream parts of speech, and any grown-up twaddle attempting to personify such abstractions offends a small person who with all his love of play and nonsense has a serious mind.” (Vol. 6, p. 210)

“Our business is to provide children with material in their lessons, and leave the handling of such material to themselves…They should narrate in the first place, and they will compose, later, readily enough; but they should not be taught ‘composition.’” (Vol. 1, p. 247)

What Research and Professionals Say:

Like with all subjects, grammar instruction should simply be putting names and labels to ideas the child is already familiar with.

“… grammar instruction must be contextualized and meaningful within students’ reading and writing. Grammar instruction should not be the discrete learning of grammatical “rules” because these rules do not translate into a superior command of language or communication.” Teaching Grammar in the 21st Century

“The best way to teach grammar is through exemplary literature. This is where grammar is real. This is where we understand the ways in which we can play with language to achieve our intentions.” Grammar Matters and Should Be Taught Differently

Research on grammar, as well as experts’ opinions, are clear: traditional methods of grammar instruction do not work. We need to remove isolated lessons, sentence diagramming, and abstract terminology from our curriculum and replace them with analyzing sentences from great writers, writing within the context of subjects they’re already learning, and learning grammar in the context of their own writing.

HOW TO TEACH

All these suggestions have been gleaned from various sources. I’ve been researching and experimenting with grammar instruction for the past two years. I still have a lot to learn, and I’m sure I’ll adjust and revise after more experience, but I’ve found these methods work well and I feel confident sharing them with you!

Form 1 (6-9 Years old)

Your elementary-age child actually knows grammar very well. If he has been listening to correct grammar through speech and books read aloud then he most probably knows basic grammatical rules. Have you ever heard a child say something like “Zoo monkey is my animal favorite?” Not many children talk this way because they have heard correct grammar by listening to others and being read to. They know where the subject, noun, verb and adjective go. Children learn correct grammar by listening to and reading high-quality language, and they are exposed to it concretely through copywork. When children copy a well-written sentence they must study it; they notice capitalization, punctuation, and word placement. If you aren’t sure how to do copywork, I recorded a detailed lesson on how to do that, as well as a video with my son to see what that looks like. 

My boys love to play Mad Libs and this gives them a great introduction to basic grammar terms, like verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. 

Form 2 (10-12 years) 

Once they have a good foundation of what correct grammar looks like, they are ready to learn the more abstract principles of grammar and writing. They move on from copywork to dictation, and begin some gentle grammar instruction in the context of their writing. Instead of sentence diagramming and other traditional methods of grammar they analyze real sentences from the best literature.. Great authors are masters at using the English language. Authors play with language. They have fun with it, and that’s what we want to teach our children at this stage. Play with words to find the best way to express your ideas. 

Grammar/Writing Lesson

Basic Lesson (Copia) 

I’ve done this lesson with my 4th graders when they first jump into written narrations and grammar lessons with the family. I loosely follow this method when doing sentence imitation lessons.

Parts of speech introduced: noun, verb, preposition

1. Begin with “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall” on a whiteboard.
2. Label each word in the sentence: noun/subject, verb, preposition, article, object of the preposition
3. Ask class to change the subject of the sentence. Do this exercise orally.
4. Ask class to change what Humpty Dumpty is DOING on the wall. i.e. Change the verb in the sentence. Do this exercise orally.
5. Give students a few minutes to write on their papers or whiteboards two or three Humpty Dumpty sentences using the same structure of the sentence but swapping out the noun, verb, preposition as desired.
6. Assignment: When writing narrations this week, include one sentence with the “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall” format with each narration. Underline each one. (Students will likely need to be reminded with their narration prompts for the week to include the Humpty Dumpty sentence.

Sentence Imitation Lesson

Experts on teaching grammar and writing have found that imitating great writing is one of the best ways to learn how to write. I’ll go into more detail later, but for now here’s the simple method: 

1. Pick a well-written, interesting, or beautiful sentence from a book. 
2. Invite your child to call out what they notice about it. 
3. You write an imitation sentence based on the model sentence. Ask your child to compare and contrast the two.
4. Invite child to write their own imitation. 

Teach Grammar in Context of Writing

Using a general writing and/or grammar curriculum that teaches your child everything they may need to know is is going to kill their desire to learn. Here’s why: some children will naturally absorb the grammar rules and writing structure while doing copywork and dictation. Others may need multiple lessons and explanations for simple things like capitalization (I’ve had both). The best way to teach is to start with written narration in 4th grade and see what your child knows. It’s as simple as that. As Charlotte said, Meet your child where she is at. Look at her written narrations – Is she capitalizing correctly? Are the verb tenses parallel? Is she using commas correctly? If not, focus on one thing at a time. Teach her the rules (I reference Write Right! By Jan Venolia), give her some examples, and invite her to focus on that one thing in her written narrations until it is a habit.  

Don’t Worry About Terminology

When explaining various aspects of grammar, usage, and punctuation to help students with their writing, minimize technical terminology and maximize the use of examples. Students will benefit from application of grammatical structures in their writing more than they will benefit from linguistic jargon (Weaver). 

What about grammar programs? 

Charlotte Mason wrote a grammar curriculum  and taught her students more technical terminology. 

I used her curriculum, the one revised and updated by A Delectable Education ladies, for my oldest when he began 4th grade. He enjoyed it and I think it is thorough and teaches grammar well. However, he got to a point where it was abstract and hard for him to understand. He didn’t remember what he learned the next lesson and couldn’t narrate well afterwards. So, I decided to put it away until middle school. I feel like it is good at teaching grammatical terms, but it’s not as good as teaching how to apply and use grammar in writing. So I’m using

Here’s how I teach grammar and writing as a family: 

We read aloud a well-written book together. Classic books, award-winning books, any book that is an excellent example of literature. We read this almost every day, usually at lunch. I pick a sentence each week from our reading that is an example of a certain type of sentence or literary device. I write this sentence on our blackboard so the kids can see it all week. At the end of the week we use it for copywork, dictation, and sentence imitation. 

I then ask my kids to look for an example of this type of sentence in a book they’re reading and to use this type of sentence in their written narration this week. 

My older son will continue the Charlotte Mason Grammar program in middle school, in addition to these sentence imitation lessons.. I plan on having my boys parse out the sentence (i.e. name the different parts of speech) in middle and high school. This is helpful as they are working through the CMs grammar program. 

Grammar Writing