shelleyfaust

What do you do about grammar? Does that just "work itself out" by
reading and writing?

I guess specifically (and how important is it anyway in a 4th grader)
how do you teach them about adverbs and adjectives, etc?

Shelley

[email protected]

<<What do you do about grammar?>>

Yes, pretty much. My oldest (15) had very unusual sentence structure when writing until about age 12. She then noticed that the way she did things was different from what she saw in books,etc. and made a conscious decision to pay attention to what she was doing. She is now taking a class on writing and is holding a solid Bplus average.

Julie S.

----- Original Message -----
From: shelleyfaust <thefaustfive@...>
Date: Thursday, February 9, 2006 8:31 am
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] New to unschooling...trying to figure it all out...

> What do you do about grammar? Does that just "work itself out" by
> reading and writing?
>
> I guess specifically (and how important is it anyway in a 4th
> grader)
> how do you teach them about adverbs and adjectives, etc?
>
> Shelley
>
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>
>
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>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
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Deb

--- In [email protected], "shelleyfaust"
<thefaustfive@...> wrote:
>
> What do you do about grammar? Does that just "work itself out" by
> reading and writing?
>
> I guess specifically (and how important is it anyway in a 4th
>grader)
> how do you teach them about adverbs and adjectives, etc?
>
> Shelley
>
Take a step back and look at where your thinking on this is coming
from and consider: why does one need to know adverbs and adjectives
and such (by name)? I know many people who can write beautifully
(and you probably do too) who couldn't tell a gerund from a
participial phrase - and it doesn't make their writing any less
beautiful, effective, powerful. About the only thing we've found
those labels for words are necessary is to do Mad Libs and it takes
all of 15 seconds to explain to a 7 yr old what a noun, verb,
adjective, etc is.

--Deb

kkraczek1969

Just as an addition to what others have said, I highly recommend "The
Read Aloud Handbook" by Jim Trelease. It discusses the importance of
reading aloud to our kids, and reminded me what a joy it is to spend
time reading to my kids, even though they are now older.

Reading is the surest way to develop good overall language skills. The
more we hear how langusge is supposed to sound, the better we get at
it ourselves! Don't think of it as "school time" either- just enjoy
being with your kids, reading great stories- those times will be
treasured memories when they are older!

Kristin


>
> What do you do about grammar? Does that just "work itself out" by
> reading and writing?
>
> I guess specifically (and how important is it anyway in a 4th grader)
> how do you teach them about adverbs and adjectives, etc?
>
> Shelley
>

Deb

--- In [email protected], "shelleyfaust"
<thefaustfive@...> wrote:
>
> What do you do about grammar? Does that just "work itself out" by
> reading and writing?
>
> I guess specifically (and how important is it anyway in a 4th
grader)
> how do you teach them about adverbs and adjectives, etc?
>
> Shelley
>
Since I work with technical writers, professional word people, I
posed this question: "As a professional writer, how often do you
think of words by their 'category' - such as "I need to use a
participle here" or "That's a gerund" or whatever?" base on this
thread. Her reply was: "Personally speaking, almost never. I think
it's like being fluent in another language. You think in the
language, not about it."

So there you have it - you can have a job writing technical manuals
without really thinking about grammar at all - as someone said, just
knowing what sounds or feels right, flows right, is the biggest
thing and that comes from immersion in the language - hearing and
reading it.

--Deb

Melissa

I have to laugh because Josh picked up a book I bought preUS
days....how to diagram sentences. He does it because it's like a
puzzle. anyhoo, yesterday I sat down with him and was looking through
the sentences and I didn't know most of the names of types of words.
LOL!
Melissa
On Feb 9, 2006, at 10:55 AM, Deb wrote:
>
> Take a step back and look at where your thinking on this is coming
> from and consider: why does one need to know adverbs and adjectives
> and such (by name)? I know many people who can write beautifully
> (and you probably do too) who couldn't tell a gerund from a
> participial phrase - and it doesn't make their writing any less
> beautiful, effective, powerful. About the only thing we've found
> those labels for words are necessary is to do Mad Libs and it takes
> all of 15 seconds to explain to a 7 yr old what a noun, verb,
> adjective, etc is.

Joanne

Hi Shelley.
I just wanted to welcome you and invite you to read some of the threads
here. If you're interested in and open to unschooling, you'll find a
wealth of information here.

~ Joanne ~
Mom to Jacqueline (7), Shawna (10) & Cimion (13)
Adopted into our hearts October 30, 2003
http://anunschoolinglife.blogspot.com/




--- In [email protected], "shelleyfaust"

<thefaustfive@...> wrote:
>
> What do you do about grammar? Does that just "work itself out" by
> reading and writing?
>
> I guess specifically (and how important is it anyway in a 4th grader)
> how do you teach them about adverbs and adjectives, etc?
>
> Shelley
>