Grammar Made Easy- New Question Answered-Gerunds & Verb Phrases

As I post the books we offer, I try to answer all the questions I can think of. Inevitably, others think of questions that would never cross my mind, and I try to add them to the FAQ page to help others who want to know the same thing. This is the latest question to cross my desk, and the answer was graciously provided by Connie Schenkelberg, who knows this stuff inside and out.

Q- Does Grammar Made Easy teach punctuation, gerunds, or verb phrases?
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Celebrate National Punctuation Day!

Okay, students, put on your party hats! It’s time to celebrate the not-so-lowly punctuation mark. We’re a little late to join the baking contest planned as part of the celebration, but there nothing stopping us from using commas, periods, apostrophes, and semi-colons to our hearts content. Choose your favorite punctuation mark and make merry!

Imagine a worldundefinedwithout punctuation a world in which wed have to guess at meanings and try to read smoothly without the aid of those handy little signals imagine how silly wed sound stumbling through Dickens or trying to skim through Hamlets soliloquy to be or not to be that is the question whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them to die to sleep no more and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to making sense of that without punctuation could be quite a nightmare especially for 10th graders if they are allowed to read Shakespeare anymore

Jeff Rubin, the founder of National Punctuation Day offers tongue-in-cheek suggestions for how to celebrate the holiday, including:

Rubin has graciously provided a page of horrifyingly funny pictures of errors spotted in public places (and instructions for how you can submit your own photos) . TIP: If you don’t find all the photos on this page hilarious, find a grammatically-correct friend to explain the joke. They’re too funny to miss!

P.S. The fact that I find these common errors funny doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally overlook things in my own writing. It also doesn’t mean that I check incoming e-mails for typos. I’m not perfect, and I don’t expect you to be. I’m always writing under deadline, and I expect that you are too, so don’t worry about having your comments or e-mails perfectly proofread. I don’t have the time or inclination. I just like to hear from you–with or without typos!

How Many Years of Grammar Do You Need?

As I talk to homeschool parents at conventions and via e-mail, I am often asked, “How many years of grammar should I be requiring of my student?” or “Does the Grammar Made Easy: Writing a Step Above course cover all the grammar you need to teach your child through the twelfth grade?” Connie Schenkelberg and I answered that question rather thoroughly in a pair of e-mails I thought I’d share with you today. As usual, there are few announcements immediately following the body of the post.

A mom e-mailed to ask: “Does this course seem to cover all the grammar you need to teach your child through the twelfth grade? I am not certain how complete it is and whether or not I would need to continue with another grammar course when this course is finished…”.

My (Janice’s) response:

Thank you for writing! I’m going to give you my opinion, but I’m also going to forward your note to Connie Schenkelberg, the author of the course. I think she will have even more insight on all the course covers.

If you’re familiar with my writings (on the website and my blog) about the learning lifestyle and teaching your student to write, you probably know that I have what I would consider a relaxed Charlotte Mason/Thomas Jefferson approach to schooling.

Grammar Made Easy was the only formal grammar we used, and I felt that it was a perfect foundation for all future writing, as well as for foreign languages. Based upon my own education, extensive reading, and the education of my boys, I believe that once the grammar foundation is laid, further grammar study should be done contextually through writing and the study of foreign language. Read more