Parents of 5th and 6th graders ES students - FCPS - can you please ask your child what are the

[Anonymous]

I still remember my 9th grade English teacher complaining that I lacked basic skills because I didn’t diagram sentences well. I did know what “sounded right” which is how I managed to earn two master’s degrees (one in English).

I do think it is helpful for kids to know the parts of speech and their roles, but mostly so they can understand how to put a complex sentence together and not just for the rote regurgitation of it.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the feedback everyone. I guess it is something else I will have to keep covering throughout end of E.S/MS and HS. I have just began it but for a moment, due to what someone said in another thread, I thought FCPS would eventually cover it in a comprehensive and systematic way - and I could just leave it alone.

I don't know anyone who just had foreign language in public school to be fluent, so I can't expect that to teach my child grammar.

[Anonymous]

OP, they do teach grammar in middle school, but do you really want to wait that long? At that point it should be review, not learning it for the first time. And I wouldn't say there was a lot of writing at the middle school level either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a pretty successful adult and I would have to google the 8 parts of speech. I don't have a job that would require that at all. I bet there are very few jobs that would require that. Why is that something you are worried about? I get wanting to make sure my kid can write well, but I would argue you can learn to write well without knowing exactly what each part is called.

Don't you think learning grammar (and that is pretty basic grammar) helps you to write well/better? I get that you don't know now, but I bet at one point in your life you learned it and incorporated that knowledge into your writing.

My experience as a high school teacher is that the kids coming from environments that emphasize grammar in elementary are the reluctant writers. They often have beautiful handwriting, but their sentences are short, because they're afraid to take a risk on words that they can't spell or sentence structures they don't remember how to use. The kids coming from public are much more fluent, their writing is better organized, and they have better voice. Then in middle school, they learn the parts of speech easily in the first year of foreign language, and editing becomes a focus in English. They enter high school as better writers.

Well, my experience as a college professor is that almost all the students are terrible writers, but that "fluent" ones fill more pages and are harder to understand.

Blame that on high school assignments that have page minimums that are twice what the maximum should be to adequately explain a given concept

[Anonymous]

My kids knew all of this by the end of 2nd grade, but they attended a Montessori school where it is 100% taught. Along with, gasp, geography -maps and physical land forms, etc. They now go to a private school in the area and are always telling me how no one in their classes know anything about geography at all. Its actually very sad and Im SO SO grateful for their Montessori foundations (Pk-3rd grade).

[Anonymous]

I remember learning these in 3-5 grades back in the 80s.

My son has learned some of the basics in 2nd grade (noun, verb, adjective).

However, i remember when we learned these in the 80s, it was mostly an exercise of "underline the verb and circle the subject" or "underline the adverb". I don't remember spending a lot of time actively learning the rules, as far as complex sentence structuring. I do remember that I aced all those stupid underlining exercises. But, even then, they were meaningless to me because they had no application in a larger context. But.... I have, and have always had, exceptional writing skills based solely on living life. I have long forgotten what an adverb is, or a pronoun (true story), but have no problem drafting a perfect paragraph.

[Anonymous]

My third grader didn't know them until I started slowly supplementing with an at-home writing program with a significant grammar component. We've covered five so far; nearly enough to play Mad Libs.

A few years back, I was helping my brilliant ninth grade cousin in another public school district with her Latin I homework. I asked her which noun declensions she'd learned so far, and she asked me what a noun was. O tempora, o mores! If they've managed to take grammar out of Latin class, it's not likely to be taught anywhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:8 parts of speech or even what an adjective is?

Something in another thread came up and I am curious if not knowing that by the end of 4th grade is a student problem, a school problem or a county wide problem.

If you please could answer and age/grade of your child. I would prefer to get answers only from students who go to public schools and not have extracurricular help (tutors, AoPS classes in LA, CTY, etc). AAP students answers are appreciated as well.

Thanks!

They have no idea. It isn't taught, just like spelling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids knew all of this by the end of 2nd grade, but they attended a Montessori school where it is 100% taught. Along with, gasp, geography -maps and physical land forms, etc. They now go to a private school in the area and are always telling me how no one in their classes know anything about geography at all. Its actually very sad and Im SO SO grateful for their Montessori foundations (Pk-3rd grade).

Montesorri meets every single standard for what we know works in education, and yet has never made it into the public schools. Makes you wonder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the f are the 8 parts of speech? I have a phd and write research papers for living.

Of course you learned it at some point. noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction and interjection.

What about determiners (articles)? That would make nine, surely.

I suspect that part of the reason they no longer test children on the "facts" of grammar is that the assessments were frequently wrong on the facts. I've seen some atrocious assessment questions that are intending to assess children's knowledge of grammatical metalanguage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the f are the 8 parts of speech? I have a phd and write research papers for living.

Of course you learned it at some point. noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction and interjection.

What about determiners (articles)? That would make nine, surely.

I suspect that part of the reason they no longer test children on the "facts" of grammar is that the assessments were frequently wrong on the facts. I've seen some atrocious assessment questions that are intending to assess children's knowledge of grammatical metalanguage.

Articles (in our program) are taught as adjectives (modifiers).