Grammar & Rhetoric

“My heart is moved by a noble theme as I recite my verses to the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.”

Psalm 45:1

Language Arts Choice

• Preschool: Kumon Books. Besides using plenty of flash cards on a variety of topics, and reading lots and lots of books, we also used plenty of Kumon workbooks, especially mazes, coloring, cutting, pasting, folding, and letters.
• Preschool-K: First Start Reading by Memoria Press. While our oldest was starting school our youngest was feeling left out and asked to do school work too. So we chose this gentle start to reading and printing.
• K-3rd: Logic of English Foundations and Essentials. This was the most serendipitous find at the first homeschool convention we attended the Summer before we started homeschooling. It was the last day of convention and I just happened to stop by the booth and ask what they were all about, though I was mentally done seeking any more information. A child (I believe whose mom was the author) gave me the pitch I was sold. It made learning to read make sense and it made sense to me. Really, they had me at the word, “logic.” Over the years they have revised and streamlined their product (we never had any streaming components). But the approach to learning how to read through phonemic awareness and phonograms, writing in cursive (and/or manuscript), spelling, reading comprehension, and grammar was incremental, comprehensive, logical, fun, AND IT WORKED! I am always amazed when I hear public school children–even middle schoolers–read out loud; they know how to recognize words, but they don’t know how to read, not with fluency, therefore, not with comprehension. They best they can do when to encounter a new word is guess. I am so glad we used this program, which has truly become foundational and essential to learning every other subject. We used Foundations A & B in kindergarten, C & D in 1st grade, and Essentials A, B, and C in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades.
• 3rd-8th: Writing and Rhetoric by Classical Academic Press. Now, I had been exposed to IEW by this time, having taught it as a Classical Conversations Essentials tutor. And it is a good program. But it seemed at the time that our kids would better enjoy the story-heavy nature of this approach, and I would benefit from the fact that it wasn’t quite so teacher-intensive. Each lesson in each book begins with a story and then leads the student through analyzing it and then learning to write in response to it in specific ways. It has been great for our naturally talented writer. It has been okay for our reluctant writer.
• 5th: Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind by Well-Trained Mind Press. We tried this for a time with our oldest. And though it was going well for most of it, at some point it got to feel more overwhelming when taken together with all the other subjects, so we put a pause on it and will revisit it in high school.
• 5th/7th-6th/8th: Our Mother Tongue by Logos Press. This grammar course impressed me because the flow of lessons was such that it was essentially how I would write a grammar text if I had the time. But I don’t so, here you go.
• 6th/8th: Write by Number. I want our kids (especially our reluctant writer) to be and feel confident as writers. And that means taking out the mystery. Again, there was another curriculum, The Baran Method, with which I was impressed and specifically helps reluctant writers write essays. However, just like Logic of English, this Write By Number takes it down to an even more fundamental level and walks the student step by step through the skills of writing. We will be using this in rotation with Writing and Rhetoric.