<p><a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15383124/from/ET/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15383124/from/ET/</a></p>
<p>I must live in some kind of alternative universe. I did grammar growing up in the 60s and 70s, and my kids did in the 80s and 90s. Sometimes I think these kinds of articles just look for the places that fit the thesis.</p>
<p>garland, I know people who have kids still doing the “Whole Language” approach to language arts. Their kids really can’t spell or string together proper sentences.</p>
<p>My kids had grammar daily in their elementary school. (Not a great school system, either.) My son learned to diagram sentences in 3rd grade & loves it. His teacher believes it is the best way to understand sentence structure, & I agree. But when I started h.s., I taught my freshman composition class how to diagram. Not a single girl in class had learned it in their grammar schools.</p>
<p>I think schools are all over the map in how they approach grammar instruction.</p>
<p>My kids, esp. my daughter, had a nice combo of Whole language lite, and grammar. What I loved about whole language is the reading of real literature as opposed to those awful basal readers–just deadly stuff. Also, the emphasis on lots and lots of writing. They wrote a lot, and were taught the grammar necessary to get it right. </p>
<p>But more than anything else, I don’t believe that the lack of correct grammar is mostly attributable to WL or any other teaching method; i think it’s because they don’t read.</p>
<p>I teach college freshmen who tell me they never read for pleasure, and often not for requirements, either. Both my kids are avid readers, and i think that’s why they are excellent writers–they know what good grammar looks like.</p>
<p>My kids did WL; the first one going for the full treatment, the second one, with a modified approach, But WL did not last beyond second grade. Once the kids were able to read, it was irrelevant. By 3rd grade, both of my kids were reading long books (think the Redwall series, Watership Down, etc…). Both kids learned to diagram sentences.</p>
<p>I agree with Garland that reading is important developing correct grammar. Learning another language is also helpful.</p>
<p>My kids were all brought up on the Whole Language thing and really never got much if any grammar instruction (except for the occasional teacher who bucked the system). Most of the little grammar they acquired had to be learned in foreign language classes.</p>
<p>None ever diagramed a sentence.</p>
<p>garland, you are so right about the reading. I know students who went to school with my children who were avid readers–they did so much better on verbal SAT and were just more proficient in writing. I did what I could to “make” my children readers–all the things “they” say helps. I read to them constantly while little. I read all the time (one of those people who gets nervous if I don’t have a couple new books waiting). But none of my 3 liked to read for fun after they hit middle school—if they weren’t doing homework or in school, they just wanted to be outside.</p>
<p>My older two have come back some now to reading–but I think it is more that they don’t have the school demands now.</p>
<p>Here’s an excerpt from today’s Washington Post article on Mike Greiner, a high school teacher in Fairfax County Virginia, who teaches the heretical subject of grammar:</p>
<p>Ten or 20 years ago, Greiner might have been ostracized for his views or at least counseled to keep them to himself. Grammar lessons vanished from public schools in the 1970s, supplanted by a more holistic view of English instruction. A generation of teachers and students learned grammar through the act of writing, not in isolated drills and diagrams.</p>
<p>You can read the whole article at: <a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201135.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201135.html</a>.</p>
<p>I remember that I pulled my son out of public school in 8th grade and put him in Catholic school so he could learn grammar. It was one of the best things I ever did for him. He stayed in Catholic school for one year before returning to public school. He knows a lot more grammar than if he had stayed in public school.</p>
<p>mkm56–I feel your pain–i’m also one of those who has to be in the middle of a book and know what the next one’s going to be kind of people. It was really important to me that my kids like reading.</p>
<p>For my S, in the early grades it was touch and go–wouldn’t sit still long enough. The Matt christopher sports books got him over the hump. Gadzooks, they were boring to me, but we’d do a “I’ll read a chapter, then you read a chapter” session and get through them, and eventually he got the bug himself. It’s nice that you’re older ones have got back into it.</p>
<p>I’m so glad that grammar is returning; if I see one more apostrophe plunked in the middle of a word that’s supposed to be plural, I’m gonna scream.</p>
<p>Have you read Eats, Shoots & Leaves yet? You’ll really like it.</p>
<p>There should be a comma after Shoots. Don’t worry, it was the author’s mistake.</p>
<p>E,S & L is wonderful.</p>
<p>Zzzzzzzz – Grammar? – did somebody say grammar?! – Zzzzzz…</p>
<p>And, no comma after “Eats”.</p>
<p>I think leanid and venado are missing the point of the title.</p>
<p>I was hoping they were funnin’.</p>
<p>ah wuz, ah wuz!</p>
<p>“Other teachers in this county say, ‘Fix the writing, and the grammar will come along.’ Not me,” Greiner said.</p>
<p>He should have said: ‘Not I’</p>
<p>lol
my oldest taught herself to read at 3 with books & cass tapes by[Arnold</a> Lobel]( <a href=“http://home.att.net/~cattonn/frog.html]Arnold”>http://home.att.net/~cattonn/frog.html)
<B Owl @ home
she didn’t go to kindergarten per se, she attended a “5s” program which did help them work on handwriting in the guise of writing stories, but also much hands on work and field trips- I don’t remember working on reading</p>
<p>Her sister seems to have many elements of dyslexia & had a much more difficult time learning to read- she wasn’t able to read really till end of 3rd grade, but then she went right into reading Harry Potter.
She still has limited phonemic memory and can’t really sound out words easily, so unfamiliar words she has to figure out by context.</p>
<p>I think that using several reading methods as most schools do, is the way to go, the same way that we are evolving to use a mix of drill and kill and “new” math to teach math</p>
<p>grammar is why I have difficulty learning another language but thank goodness for [Grammarian](<a href=“http://linguisoft.com/”>http://linguisoft.com/</a>)</p>
<p>And, no comma after “Eats”.</p>
<p>driver - Actually, I was serious about that.</p>