Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Actively teach grammar or acquire by osmosis?

Do you think very bright children should be actively taught grammar or are they capable of absorbing it by osmosis?

I am debating whether to provide some grammar resources that are semi fun or at least not deadly dull and encourage DS & DD (rising 4th graders) to polish their grammar skills. They are not bad and likely above average but decidedly lagging other abilities. I guess their grammatical errors bother me a bit.

I am of two minds as to the necessity. I missed all the grammar classes in middle school because GT classes replaced the English classes and for whatever reason the school did not think we need to get grammar instructions. As a result, I would not be able to teach gramar without some kind of resource because I actually don't know a lot of the terms. I don't really know the rules but mostly I write by feel/sound.

Any recommended resources, particular for upper elementary kids?

I very strongly believe in actively teaching it--I am jealous of how well my dd11 knows her grammar--and I just think that even the smartest kid needs to actually be taught. It will also make learning other languages easier in the future. Don't know about resources--my dd's Montessori school did a great job with it until we left in March when she was in 5th grade.

I also think it should be taught. Written communication is getting more and more casual and I worry that if our kids are not reading the right materials they'll have a poor template from which to pick up grammar...

Cricket3: I agree with your other hand... I actually think you're showing exactly WHY it's important to really teach grammer, not just to pay lip service. Grammar is deadly boring and often incomprehensible if you do it wrong, but quite powerful if you do it right.

Now, we might be going a little over the top... my english speaking 3 yr old knows what case is But we've been teaching it the way we teach socially appropriate behavior. If he says "I is going" I often, but not always, reply "you should say I AM going, becaue 'am' is the second person of 'to be'" So it's just the explaination part of the usual gentle correction for errors.

As an adult, I have taught myself grammar mainly by creating little useful creoles... adding latin endings to english words so that I can decline them and similar. Despite having a decidedly better than average understanding of grammar, I feel strongly that my lack of grammar skills limits me from accomplishing many of my goals. (Including looking like a competent human being on the internet!) I just don't have as much controle over the medium of language as I feel I need.

The big three things I feel my education as a child really dropped the ball on are, history, geography, and basic language/math skills like grammar and calculation)

Oh! and there's that bit about how the generation that are kids now are likely to spend considerably MORE time than their parents communicating in written form, and are likely to use a wider range of moods in their written communication, making it more necessary to clearly differentiate texting from thesis writing

My usual 203 cents, sorry. I tend to be opinionated.

Because writing is so very important in high school, college and beyond...I think giving your kids a solid foundation in grammar will only help them. Even the best spellcheck/grammar check cannot truly know how we mean a sentence to be. If we know the rules, our creativity will be a choice and not a deficit.

I don't have any good teaching resources. I always LOVED sentence graphing (especially once it became quite complex). It felt like a nice juicy logic puzzle. My DH, on the other hand, detested it.

I would actively teach grammar, and I highly recommend Michael Clay Thompson's language arts materials if you're looking for a fun yet meaty supplement.

I think direct instruction is faster and less likely to leave gaps. My kids use EPGY through Open Enrollment, so that Language Arts and Writing (LAW) are bundled with math, and they use both. In fact, when my 6yo declares that EPGY math has become too hard, he opts to do LAW while waiting for his brain to get bigger .

My rising 5th-grader scored in the 400s on the SAT reading and writing sections without any preparation, which is fine for now but leaves room for improvement. I will encourage him to read and practice on the grammar sections of SAT prep books. Searching "SAT Grammar" on Amazon brings up some books with good reviews.

I think that I made very few grammatical errors as a kid, but I still feel like direct grammar instruction would have been hugely beneficial. I agree that the bar must have been set pretty low even in the advanced LA classes at my school.

I got an 800 on my English achievement test and have worked as a professional editor. I couldn't diagram a sentence to save my life, and my knowledge of geeky technical grammar (as in, the actual technical terms) is relatively weak. I don't think bright, verbal children need a great deal of instruction in this, though some simple reminder rules (for instance, there are some easy cheats for remembering when to use "who" and "whom," and so on) are of use. Reading widely and, more importantly, being edited ruthlessly by someone who knows what they are doing will do a great deal more to improve writing skills.

Gifted kids who are very math-heavy may be a different matter. However, even in that case, I'm not convinced that treating grammar like math instruction or like a puzzle to be solved is terribly effective--I think it's more holistic.

My DD seems to be much like me and is picking up beautiful grammar and sentence construction by osmosis. In fact, she notices errors in books and points them out to me. Be still my heart!

I've had my kids this summer write brief paragraphs daily during the week. That has helped their grammar, spelling, and handwriting alot. I think if you just get them writing more and do some spot teaching on areas that need help, that is useful.
I speak German fluently, having studied it for 5 years and then studying at a German university for a year before graduate school. I did not understand the nuances of English grammar until I really studied a foreign language.