Nitty Gritty....

I have two homeschool students--Mr. Almost 13 and Miss Almost 10.  This year we have been working our way through Easy Grammar Daily Grams as the foundation of our 'grammar' allotment on the daily schedule. I sold our Easy Grammar lesson books as I found them not to be very intuitive or appealing, but Daily Grams are wonderful.  We used to have a similar program when I taught in the public schools called Daily Language Review.  I love Daily Grams because they offer just that--a daily gram of grammar.  Each exercise includes snippets of skill work beginning with editing and ending with a sentence combining activity.  

 In order to truly assess our children's spelling and grammar we need to observe their writing. Spelling lists can be memorized, test formats can be rehearsed, but authentic writing reveals which tools the writer has in 'hisorher' hip pocket.   The writing samples and assignments I have given the kids over the past year have shown marked improvement and growth.  Some of this I attribute to the Daily Gram exercises.  I have observed growth in sentence structure, and improvement in spelling and punctuation. 

Along the way in our Daily Gram routine we have clearly needed a grammar reference book.  As a collector/seller of used books I have tried several grammar books from my gatherings and have ended up loving Nitty-Gritty Grammar A Not-So-Serious Guide to Clear Communication.  Mr. Almost 13 and I have discovered that this book is able to help and amuse at the same time.  One morning we encountered a preposition exercise and I had him refer to the Nitty Gritty book.  You have to love the description we found--

Use the 'squirrel and tree' trick to help you remember most prepositions.  the squirrel can go near the tree, by the tree, up the tree, across the branches, through the leaves, over the roots, around the trunk, above the limbs....  

The page thoroughly explains and lists prepositions, but the catchy intro cements the idea that many prepositions show position.  As one of the reviews on the back of the book attests, "If learning grammar is about as much fun as a trip to the dentist, this book is the laughing gas. ...The drills on correct speech are so wacky that you can't help but remember them."