Anonymous wrote:Your child doesn't know what an adverb is but he probably knows all about transgender stuff. Says something about a school district's skewed priorities. Lots of time for liberal indoctrination. Grammar? Not so much.

Transgender stuff is not yet part of the FCPS curriculum, but sex trafficking is every year starting in 6th to 10th. Probably just as many lessons in that as grammar.

Anonymous wrote:Your child doesn't know what an adverb is but he probably knows all about transgender stuff. Says something about a school district's skewed priorities. Lots of time for liberal indoctrination. Grammar? Not so much.

Unfortunately, this is becoming more of a reality.

Your child doesn't know what an adverb is but he probably knows all about transgender stuff. Says something about a school district's skewed priorities. Lots of time for liberal indoctrination. Grammar? Not so much.

Writing is one of the main reasons I am sending my child to Catholic school starting in MS. Spelling, grammar and handwriting doesn't seem to matter one bit in public ES. My DS can hand in a mess for a writing assignment and get an A on it. When I ask the teachers about it, they say they have to grade from a rubric. Apparently, these things don't matter.

I have a freshman in FCPS and a 7th grader in a private school. My private school kid has been taught grammar and writing mechanics from kindergarten. My FCPS kid has been told "just write" since Kindergarten, never received feedback on writing (even in AAP in ES and MS...writing assignments were not returned or discussed) and now in high school is being told that her writing needs to be at college level immediately.

It is so bad that her 8th grade Latin teacher taught them English grammar, because he said that it isn't taught in school and they needed to know it before they could learn Latin grammar.

Anonymous wrote:I am an ESOL teacher and ironically, my lesson tomorrow from my 3rd grade ESOL book is on adverbs. The book describes adverbs as words that describe when, where or how things happen. Once, then, later, first, suddenly, away, close are all adverbs.

At least some kids in FCPS are learning them. Our local catholic school teaches them in 3rd.

I write for a living and I have a hard time explaining even the most basic grammar rules and terminology, but I can use them correctly in context. Call it a mental block - I just can't wrap my head around the rules. You don't have to be fluent in the rules of grammar (the "why") to know how to apply them. It certainly helps, which is why schools teach this stuff, but it's not anything to get worked up about. Or about which to get worked up, if you want to go old-school grammar Nazi

Anonymous wrote:I make 400k a year and I have no idea what an adverb is

Post of the day.

Is are children's learning adverbs?

I am an ESOL teacher and ironically, my lesson tomorrow from my 3rd grade ESOL book is on adverbs. The book describes adverbs as words that describe when, where or how things happen. Once, then, later, first, suddenly, away, close are all adverbs.

I make 400k a year and I have no idea what an adverb is

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As far as I can tell, Arlington never ever ever teaches parts of speech, which seriously undermines learning other languages. My kid is in German, and I have had to teach some grammar to get him through it.

That's the best and usual way to learn parts of speech in English, when learning another language.

Absolutely this. I was taught English grammar in elementary and middle school 35-40 years ago, but it wasn't until I began studying French that it all clicked into place. Especially things like the conditional tense. (And the mangling of the conditional in English is one of my biggest pet peeves, lol.)

Conditional is not a tense. Maybe that's the problem.

Though some pedants like to quibble, the conditional is actually quite commonly referred to as a tense, especially when studying a foreign language (such as French) in which use of the conditional changes the verb ending. In any discussion of the conjugation of verb tenses in French, the conditional mood will be included. For example:

http://www.france-pub.com/dictionary/verbs.php

So it is easy to see why someone who says that she developed a better grasp of English grammar through her study of French grammar would refer to the conditional as a tense. Wikipedia specifically notes: In some informal contexts, such as language teaching, [the conditional] may be called the "conditional tense".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_mood

Anonymous wrote:Our private school teaches that in 5th. I don't think I learned it until 7th growing up.

Growing up in Catholic school in the 70s-80s, I think we learned basic parts of speech maybe around 3rd grade, adverbs/adjectives/prepositions around 4th grade, and diagramming in maybe 6th or 7th.

All of the kids were familiar with the terms from a young age due to School House Rock (Lolly lolly lolly get your adverbs here...Interjection! An excitement! And emotion! Alleluiah!)

Everyone watched the same 2-4 channels on Saturday morning so we were all familiar with the same things.

I don't find it unusual that my second grader has not yet been taught more complicated parts of speech like adverbs.

I wouldn't expect a 7 year old to know what an adverb is. However, I have noticed that my kids have spent much less time on grammar topics compared to what I did going to school in the 80s (diagramming sentences, ugh). I feel like a lot of what they do learn comes in MS and maybe 9th or 10th grade.

However, while they may not know what a gerund is, but they seem to be able to speak and write English correctly and I certainly haven't wasn't giving them supplementary grammar lessons in starting in 2nd grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach 4th grade AAP and I teach all parts of speech at the beginning of the year because we reference it all year in our writing. There are a few kids who do not pay attention and still don't know what an adverb is.

You are the exception not the rule in FFX County.

Of course, AAP. Where all the best resources go, while the rest of the FFx schools get nothing. How nice that at least some elite Ffx children are getting a good education.