Having a good, solid foundation in grammar is important for strong writing later so I was excited to give Easy Grammar: Grade 1 from Easy Grammar Systems a try with my daughter.
What is Easy Grammar
When I first started homeschooling almost 10 years ago now, I remember hearing about Easy Grammar — actually about Daily Grams but I quickly found that it was part of the Easy Grammar system. And many of the families were raving about the curriculum and how great it was for their family.
Easy Grammar Systems was created by Dr. Phillips to introduce basic grammar concepts to grades 1 through 6+. She felt that introducing concepts at the basic level and then building upon them in daily lessons with cumulative reviews and tests would promote mastery.
The Teacher Edition, if you are using the program with only one student, is really all you need. It contains teaching instruction, answers keys, and student pages that may be reproduced. There is a scope and sequence, teaching tips, and then a daily page of lessons.
There are student workbooks available for purchase, however, they do not contain the answers and really are only needed if you are teaching more than one child at the same time. Or if you have taught the program before and the teacher edition is written in and you need to have them write in another book. Otherwise, the teacher’s edition is all you need.
How We Used It
Each day we took out our Easy Grammar and went through the lessons. They really only take about 15 minutes, which is great. And there are some good foundations concepts taught. For instance, lesson 1 Capitalization and punctuation is introduced. The concepts are taught briefly and then modeled and practiced. The concept of capital letter versus lower case is discussed and demonstrated. Then the last thing is to trace and/or write the sentence for practice with capitalizing the first letter and punctuating.
The lessons build upon each other, with built it in reviews of concepts already introduced. For instance, remembering that capitalization and punctuation are introduced in lesson one. Fast forward to Day 13 and we are still capitalizing but titles like Mr. and Mrs. and discussed and the exclamation point are introduced. The lesson includes capital and lower case tracing of 4 letter words and a sentence to trace and/or write demonstrating the concepts.
What We Thought
Being a classical education homeschool, it is important to have a solid grammar foundation. Beginning early is good but I don’t like a too heavy of an introduction to grammar. I don’t want overwhelming, I want a solid foundation. Pegs to build on. And the Easy Grammar Systems Easy Grammar: Grade 1 does just that.
The lessons were easy to follow and quick to get through. I liked how to them simply built on previous so the review is built into the lessons. The concepts were definitely foundations and providing a good start to learning grammar.
I liked that each day is planned out and easy to follow. No planning necessary. You can just pick up the book and teach the lesson. The lessons were short enough to keep my 1st graders attention.
Overall, I liked Easy Grammar: Grade 1 and I can see us continuing to use it for the rest of the school year.
Easy Grammar Systems has something for every level so be sure to see if Easy Grammar Systems will work for your family. You can check out sample lessons for every level or you can read what other Homeschool Review Crew members said about the levels they reviewed.
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