Your Questions About Grammar Made Easy: Writing a Step Above Answered

by Connie Schenkelberg

We occasionally receive questions about GME, and we thought it may help others to share the questions and answers here. If you have a question that you'd like to ask Connie Schenkelberg, the author of the text, please feel free to e-mail her. If your question is chosen to be posted, we'll remove any identifying personal information, so that it can be useful to everyone. Thank you for writing-- I find it very helpful to read through the questions and answers, because I always learn something! -Janice Campbell

Q- My husband and I are looking for a grammar course that we could do with our two boys (13 and 11) at the same time. I was looking into your material and noticed in the first lesson there was no definition of a subject, verb or noun. As the material gets harder, are there definitions for the other parts of speech? How long does it take to complete a lesson? Do you recommend any daily drills that could be used with your material to help the kids retain what they are learning? Or does the questions in each lesson act as a drill for the children?

A- Traditional grammar texts define the various parts of speech, then ask students to use those definitions to find all of the *whatevers* (nouns, verbs, etc.) in a sentence or paragraph. I don't find that particularly helpful. Instead, I teach grammar from the position of a word's function in the sentence. For example, the word "running' is normally a verb; however, it can also be a noun or an adjective, as shown in the sentences below:

Running is my favorite sport. [Used here as a noun.]
The running man was chased by a dog. [Used here as an adjective.]

So, as a student goes throughout the book, he will learn the function or job of the various parts of speech. By approaching grammar from this perspective, he will learn how to construct better sentences and how to express himself better. -- I was a public school teacher and used this system for nearly 20 years. During that time, I found that my 6th and 7th grade students wrote like 9th graders by the end of the year. This method also improved their reading and listening skills.

When introducing a new sentence type, the lessons are intended to be taught in about 10 minutes. Homework (or independent work) to reinforce the lesson also takes about 10 minutes. Then the next day, you go over the homework. Briefly reinforce what was taught the day before, and make the next homework assignment. [I don't know if you noticed, but each chapter has a homework guide to suggest assignments and time frames for each chapter.]

By teaching and reinforcing this way, you will help your sons retain the material. Another way to assist in retention is to expect your sons to use these tools in their writing assignments for other subjects, such as science and social studies.

Sample Lesson (PDF)

If you'd like to see a sample, I've posted the first lesson as PDF download-- CLICK HERE to get it. Take a look at it, and see for yourself how easy grammar can be!

How To Get It

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Now... is everybody happy;-)?