Homeschool Grammar Curriculum

Why is Grammar Important?

Learning grammar is important because it helps students effectively communicate with others, express their feelings, write compelling papers, and prepare for a successful career. He or she will be able to produce an essay worthy of acceptance to a college or submit a properly formatted job resume, free of spelling and punctuation errors.

Without proper grammar lessons, students may not understand the message a piece of literature is trying to convey. Answering questions about a reading assignment will also be more difficult because sentence structure hasn’t been mastered. Attempting to write an essay without a strong foundation in grammar can lead to a composition that is neither clear nor understandable. If a child is struggling with grammar, it is inevitable that it will spill over into all aspects of their language arts curriculum.

Grammar Curriculum Overview

Homeschool grammar instruction must be more than just laying out a set of rules for students to follow. An effective grammar curriculum helps students make a connection between the rules and how they make writing clearer and easier to understand. Once students have mastered grammar skills they are able to speak and write eloquently and with confidence.

The first introduction children have to grammar is via spoken language: hearing how sentences are properly formed and phrased. Once they begin school, though, they see those formations translated into writing. As they move through grade school, students are introduced to increasingly more complex grammatical concepts. Building on a foundation of previously learned grammar skills, students will study:

• Capitalization and punctuation
• Plurals and possessives
• Contractions
• Verb tenses
• Parts of speech
• Parts of a sentence
• Phrases and clauses
• Subject-verb agreement
• Subjunctive mood
• Editing and revision

If taught properly, students understand that these elements of grammar are used to make them better overall communicators.

Grammar Curriculum for Elementary

The writing process itself naturally begins to introduce grammar to early elementary students. In grades K-2, grammar lessons for kids will include:

• Using complete sentences
• Capitalizing the first letter of each sentence
• Using apostrophes
• Using singular and plural nouns and pronouns
• Using singular possessives

As they move into upper elementary, students will be writing more complex sentences and will need further grammatical instruction. Elements of grammar they will learn include:

• Parts of speech
• Using commas in a series
• Past and present verb tense
• Avoidance of double negatives
• Using plural possessives

Grammar Curriculum for Middle School

In middle school, grammar instruction focuses on applying grammatical rules to writing improvement. If grammar seemed at all an isolated course during the elementary years, this dissolves during junior high as students weave grammatical concepts through all of their writing efforts.

Additional elements of grammar that middle schoolers will explore include:

• Subject-verb agreement
• Maintaining consistent verb tense
• Use of quotation marks in dialogue
• Proper use of conjunctions
• Editing for fragments and run-on sentences

Grammar Curriculum for High School

As it was in middle school, grammar instruction in high school is largely contextual—taught as a natural outgrowth of writing. As the complexity of what students are expected to write in the high school years increases, so does the incorporation of more advanced grammar concepts.

High school students will continue to build grammar skills by:

• Using modifiers appropriately to build interest in their writing
• Demonstrating their understanding of sentence construction by identifying all eight parts of speech and how they are used
• Punctuate a variety of sentence types correctly
• Use comparative and superlative degrees in adjectives and adverbs
• Use appositives, main clauses, and subordinate clauses
• Distinguish between active and passive voice

Why Time4Learning’s Homeschool Grammar Curriculum Works

Time4Learning incorporates online grammar lessons throughout its entire language arts curriculum. In addition to providing dedicated grammar instruction, Time4Learning incorporates grammar practice into many of the reading and writing lessons. For example, during a unit on fictional mysteries, fourth graders studying “The Case of the Missing Goblet” will become acquainted with proper use of quotation marks. And high schoolers taking English 1 will use the opportunity of writing a personal narrative to practice gerunds, participles, and infinities.

The computer is an excellent way to provide grammar help your child because it provides visual input that often has more impact than working out of a textbook. Time4Learning provides grammar study online that feels more like playing a video game than doing actual schoolwork. However, for students who need additional reinforcement, many of the grammar lessons offer printable worksheets.

With our online homeschool grammar curriculum you can expect a program that:

• Clearly presents and explains grammar rules
• Provides lots of practice
• Uses interactive lessons and visual cues to help students retain grammar rules
• Follows a structured and sequential approach—a must for families who need grammar curriculum for students with dyslexia
• Incorporates grammar instruction intrinsically with writing instruction
• Allows parents to choose between having students move through lessons sequentially or to target specific grammar concepts that they may be struggling with