Do you teach 3.5year old kids grammar?

Early Learning Teaching Your Child - Signing, Speaking, Languages
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Hi, I am wondering is it good to let them know about grammar at this age?For example, do you teach is, are, was, were to them at 3.5years old? I am trying to speak to her in proper English… however, I was thinking whether I should also tell her why did I use past tense or present tense in the sentence. Will I confuse her? For example, “Just now, we were at the petshop… Now, we are at the supermarket” … She always mixed the “were” with “are” in the “just now” and “now” sentence.

If you are teaching them about grammar, how do you tell them so that they will not get confused?

:slight_smile:

2

I have taught my son parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, prepositions, predicates and subjects. I have also taught him punctuation quotation, question marks, full stops etc.
I teach it informally though. Recently when we were out walking he said something about foots. And that led us to a discussion about irregular plurals.

3

Do you tell him which words is “noun” or “adjectives” at this age?

4

Grr. I just typed up a whole thing and I come back and the page is blank and those bottles are laughing manically at me. Does anyone else feel that way?

5

Take 2

I define things for James. He can often figure out what they are. Here are some of the things we have covered.

Parts of speech
Subject: who or what the sentence is about. Often, but not always a noun.
Predicate: it a what the subject does.
Object: it is who or what the subject does it to.
Noun: person, place, thing or idea. We have not covered pronouns yet. Naming words.
Verb: what is done. Doing words.
Adjective: qualities of a noun. Describing words.
Adjverbs: enhances verbs and adjectives. They describe intensity and measure. Often end in -ly.
Prepositions: we have only really covered the positional words.

Basic tenses.
Past: has already happened.
Present: is happening right now.
Future: it will happen.

He knows 1st, 2nd and 3rd person.

We seem to often focus on irregular things. The rule breakers because childred untuit language. As Doman wrote, they are linguistic geniuses. As mentioned above irregular plurals come up. Tooth-teeth etc. irregular tenses. Like do-did.

Hope this helps.

6

We are using parts of speech. We started with them when she was 2,5y and she really liked it. We are about to review it. Thanks for the reminder :laugh:

http://www.amazon.com/Parts---Speech-Tales-Motivating-Super-Funny/dp/0545164583/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1376394129&sr=8-8&keywords=parts+of+speech

7

I printed this out and put it by our toilet. My kids read it extensively until it got torn and we threw it away. I admit that besides this and School House Rock videos, we haven’t done anything to specifically address grammar. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t. :slight_smile: The poem’s author was unknown, it’s old, and I don’t feel like digging to figure out where I got it. Sorry. :slight_smile:

Three little words you often see
Are ARTICLES - a, an, and the.

Every name is called a NOUN,
As field and fountain, street and town;

In place of noun the PRONOUN stands
As he and she can clap their hands;

The ADJECTIVE describes a thing,
As magic wand and bridal ring;

The VERB means action, something done -
To read, to write, to jump, to run;

How things are done, the ADVERBS tell,
As quickly, slowly, badly, well;

The PREPOSITION shows relation,
As in the street, or at the station;

CONJUNCTIONS join, in many ways,
Sentences, words, or phrase and phrase;

The INTERJECTION cries out, ‘Hark!
I need an exclamation mark!’

Through Poetry, we learn how each
of these make up THE PARTS OF SPEECH.

8

I can not write much now ( and promise I would write more on the topic later! :yes: ) but wanted to mention “Simply Grammar - An Illustrated Primer” by Charlotte Mason. (http://www.amazon.com/Simply-Grammar-An-Illustrated-Primer/dp/1889209015)

It is REALLY good and I highly recommend it for basic grammar with little children, EL kids can start on it pretty early and go on their own pace. It gives an excellent “spine” and you can add different practice activities throughout the day to re-enforce the short lessons.

Of course they say it is for 4th grade and up :smiley: but it is a good fit for 3-4 yo EL child :yes: Enjoy!

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Oh, Tamsyn, you know I am loving that poem. It is so cute. These are all great ideas. I have not used the Simply Grammar books, but I did start First Language Lessons with my 3-4 year olds. They are completely scripted, so you don’t have to come up with anything to say. You just read it to your child and have them answer you. We would take this further and play naming nouns, verbs, pronouns and so forth throughout the day. I really like that book. It was easy to use, very thorough and my kids loved it. There is lots of chanting to help them remember definitions. Even now my 9 year old quotes these back to me when he is asked the definition of a part of speech.

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Thanks, Krista. :slight_smile: And thank you for the Grammar recommendation books everyone.
I am remembering now a game Sidney Ledson describes in his “Give your child genius IQ” book. One player thinks of a nursery rhyme, and thinks of a couple of words to be substituted, and tells the other player, say, I need two nouns and one verb. Let’s say they come up with “Chicken, Fork, and spin.” Well, the poem was Jack and Jill, so the new version would be, Jack and Jill went up a chicken to spin a pail of forks." Tee hee, everyone laughs, and players switch roles.

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Oh, Tamsyn, that reminds me of Madlibs. My kids LOVE these. They are a really fun and funny way to learn grammar. You can buy the Madlibs books, I am including a link so you can see them, or play them online. Lots and lots of fun!! So much so that your children will want to know the parts of speech so they can join the fun.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=madlibs

http://www.funbrain.com/brain/ReadingBrain/ReadingBrain.html

http://www.itsamadlibsworld.com/

12

Absolutely teach grammar as soon as possible! As well as literary terms and devices, and anything else you might find in a lit class. Honestly, I have found it far easier to teach Alex with examples from children’s picture books than anything else even college-level lit books might use as examples. The next time you open a picture book, take notice of the huge range of everything from sentence structure, punctuation, and literary devices. I think Alex was not even two when we introduced parts of speech, punctuation, and things like onomantopeia, alliteration, hyperbole, personification, etc… So many more vivid examples in children’s books. I will list some of our favorite resources below, but I also made little 10-inch long cards of all the parts of speech and lit devices and put them up on a wall near where we do our bedtime reading so that she has them in view. As we do our night time reading she likes to point out examples for me:)

So, as Lelask recommended, we started with the Scholastic Parts of Speech Tales, Grammar Tales, and Punctuation Tales, which have a separate little book for each individual topic.

Very soon I stumbled upon a series of fabulous and fun to read books by Brian P. Cleary. I can’t say enough great things about them as each book concentrates on say, a part of speech. (Or similes, metaphors, whatever). With titles such as ‘To Root, To Toot, To Parachute: a book about Nouns’ or ‘Hairy, Scary, Ordinary: a Book about Adjectives’ they are just too cute. Most libraries carry these, so have a look.
Here is a list of some from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_15?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=brian+p.+cleary&sprefix=Brian+P.+Cleary%2Caps%2C995&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Abrian+p.+cleary

Oh! There is a great vintage book called Grammar Land by M.L.Nesbitt that she enjoyed tremendously, it is very silly and fun. Listening to it really helped her solidify the ideas as well. Here are the links to download the free PDF and the audio recording if you like:

http://archive.org/details/grammarlandorgr00nesbgoog

http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/book/Grammar-Land

We did some of First Language Lessons as well, but I honestly find much of it very, very redundant and Alex gets very frustrated and uncooperative it I try to make her rehash something she already gets. Exactly how many lessons does one need on nouns? lol

I just bought her two levels of Michael Clay Thompson LA and I think this will be much more appropriate given all the EL she has already done in this area.

Tamsyn-
It’s funny, that is one of the very first poems that I gave Alex for memory work after buying the Living Memory book by Andrew Campbell! We love it as well:)

13

Yes!
We teach literary devices also. Alliteration, onomatopoeia, and we do it as we read. I don’t do any separate grammar lessons. I do intend to search Discovery Plus for a suitable video lesson.

Keri, I am glad we aren’t the only ones that found FLL rather slow. I am going o check out some of those silly books for fun.

Tamsyn, I have that poem and I keep meaning to print it out.

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I used a game called the very silly sentence game. Taught nouns, adjectives, verbs, articles and prepositions. It is made by DK and it gets the point across quickly and effectively.

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I used a game called the very silly sentence game. Taught nouns, adjectives, verbs, articles and prepositions. It is made by DK and it gets the point across quickly and effectively.

16

There are some really good ideas in this thread.

I don’t have much to add other than to say Grammar is vitally important, and actually is the first part of the trivium which, imo, is the foundation of a solid education. The trivium, (information found here), is grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

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Just for clarification, when they say “grammar” in relation to the trivium, it’s not just the grammar of language, but refers to the basic building blocks of any academic pursuit. The grammar of math is memorizing your multiplication tables. The grammar of music is knowing how to build a scale and triads, to feel a steady beat. The grammar of art is knowing your colors and basic shapes. That sort of thing.

18

In spite of the sticker shock, I am entertaining the idea of Cozy Grammar, especially after reading reviews. The videos come with a printable curriculum, which explains the price. I don’t know if we would do the workbooks now or not- depends on the age of your child. Bare minimum, she has some great free stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW_-guiTDDw

http://www.splashesfromtheriver.com/

Some reviews:
http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/271792-cozy-grammar-why-isnt-it-more-popular/
http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/208346-cozy-grammar-question-carschooling/

My friend who introduced me says:
“We have always loved Cozy Grammar, which is 3-4 minute long, kind of goofy video segments and corresponding exercises… I think back when we bought it, it was $80 for the Grammar and Punctuation DVDs and printable workbook. We’ve used them every year for 3 years, so I consider it a good investment.”

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Keri - I was rereading this post and noticed you mentioned Living Memory. I looked around a little to see what that is. Where did you get yours and are you happy with it? It sounds intriguing, but Amazon doesn’t have it. Did you get a physical copy or an ebook? I see you can by it through Lul.com. I am curious to your thoughts. Please share. Thanks.

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Krista-
Sorry for the late reply, I haven’t been able to be around!

I LOVE the Andrew Campbell Living Memory book! I cannot say enough great things about it. Yes, everything in it can be found on other sites, books, library, etc. for free. But the book has SO much included in it, all in one handy, wonderfully organized and collated package.

Alex actually has delighted in memorizing poems and general memory work. I am convinced that it is because of EL and more RB visualization practice, but she tends to read them through a couple of times, read them aloud, and then spends a day or two fine tuning. We learn at least a new piece per week now, an the Living Memory book is my go to source as I have it in PDF format. She has memorized things ranging from the Preamble to the Constitution, Pledge of Allegience, Poems by Robert Lewis Stevenson, Jack Prelutsky, the National Anthem, Linnaeus’s classification system, any number of things. So Much FUN!
And we only spend a few minutes per day. I made a binder as recommended in the book, with a simple review system for weekly and monthly, but she will start reciting for fun at random times during the day lol
One morning she wasn’t even awake and was mumbling prime numbers!

I bought my copy in PDF format via Lulu.com, but I see that Amazon has it in HB as well. Honestly, I usually like to have physical copies of books but in this case the PDF works much better as I can print out the page I need and add it to her binder.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/andrew-a-campbell/living-memory/ebook/product-17520206.html

Oh! And it is designed for a Classical-style education, so there is a great deal of say Latin and Greek materials as well. Lots of history, although we are learning those more in a timeline fashion as I do not believe having her memorize lots of dates at this point, out of context, is effective or efficient.

Here is a video we made a few month ago of her reciting The Preamble to the Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance when President Obama came to our city:

http://youtu.be/Ttp9OwFQoek