Have you ever wondered why your kids should learn grammar this coming year?
Are you simply having your kids learn English grammar because everyone else does?
Or, you learned grammar, so your kids need to learn grammar!
What’s the real purpose of learning English grammar?
My goal in teaching grammar to my own kids was for them to be better communicators. Better communicators verbally. Better communicators in writing.
Filling out grammar worksheets didn’t matter to me. Diagramming sentences wasn’t important either. If those tasks truly helped my kids speak & write well, then I’m all for it. But they don’t.
The Problem with Traditional Methods
The problem is traditional methods of teaching grammar don’t translate into better communicators. Just because your child makes A’s on grammar worksheets, or diagram sentences, doesn’t mean he can edit his own writings.
Real-life sentences are more complicated than workbooks.
When I was homeschooling I found a few resources that helped my kids improve their editing abilities. Daily Grams was the one tool available 15 years ago that allowed my kids do edit sentences for punctuation & spelling. However, the sentences were still contrived. They were not real-life sentences in real-life writings.
The Solution in Teaching & Learning English Grammar
Towards the end of my homeschooling career, Fix-It Grammar was published. The entire resource gave my kids opportunities to edit real-life sentences. How so?
Fix-It Grammar overcomes these difficulties by teaching grammar at the point of need. Instead of a page full of grammar exercises, students will tackle real-life sentences with limited instruction.
Students learn to think about their own writing and incrementally learn how to apply the grammar rules to written work. Moreover, it is the daily practice in editing that helps instill the habit & confidence of editing anything they write.
Consider that mistakes are an opportunity to learn.
If your students mismark a word or miss a correction, LAUGH! You read that right . . . don’t lecture them or scold them for making a mistake.
Show them what they missed, revisit the grammar rule involved, and encourage them that they can catch it next time.
After all, EVERYONE needs an EDITOR. Even professional writers and editors miss errors.
The important thing is to understand the process and catch as much as you can. Knowing the reasons behind the fixes will make your students much better editors in the long run, & you will also gain the expertise to evaluate your students’ papers better when they are older.
Finally, it’s a lot more fun to correct other’s mistakes at first. Let your child practice correcting mistakes in Fix-It. After practicing on other people’s mistakes, your child will have the confidence to edit their own writings.
And, isn’t that the grand purpose of learning grammar?
Next, I’ll share a complete review of Fix-It and how it improves your child’s ability to communicate.
Question: Why are your kids learning grammar? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
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