I was thinking about this the other day when the topic came up among some friends. I was surprised to learn that I was the only one in the group that didn’t teach formal grammar as a separate subject. So I asked some other friends. In that group I was the only one to do any sort of grammar at all. Now I’m curious as to who teaches formal grammar, who doesn’t and why.
What the Experts Say
Some experts claim that you never should teach grammar as a formal and separate subject. After all, grammar is useless apart from writing. Spouting off that you know what a gerund is. . .well, doesn’t do much. What counts, so sayeth the experts, is that you know when something is wrong. Whether or not you can verbalize the fact that your sentence ends in a preposition, what is key is that you realize it’s incorrect. Grammar, writing. . .they’re all combined and if you can’t distinctly label the terminology, diagram a sentence, or note a verb—that’s fine. This is a key philosophy in the “balanced literacy” approach of many public schools and is also a key philosophy in Writing Strands, a writing curriculum for homeschoolers.
What the Other Experts Say
If you are more traditional in your approach to homeschooling, using things like the tried and true “Rod and Staff”, then you are probably appalled at the idea that someone doesn’t need to know how to diagram a sentence. Verbs, adverbs, nouns—every child should know what they mean and understand their function in a sentence. For this, sayeth traditionalists, is the road to good writing.
My Approach
I said I didn’t teach grammar as a formal and separate subject—but I didn’t say I don’t teach grammar. I do teach terminology during writing, and I definitely teach the woes of run on sentences and sentence fragments. It seems to me that over all, young adults are inadequately prepared for the job market, lacking basic writing skills or the ability to fix their mistakes. However, truth be told, where I really work on grammar is through foreign language. Learning a foreign language gives purpose to knowing what a verb is, how a sentence goes together and practicing conjugations. It naturally teaches the importance of grammatical construction.
So where do you fall on the grammar continuum—is it totally irrelevant, absolutely essential, or do you find ways to sneak it in?
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