Growing with Grammar – A Review
Growing with Grammar is a workbook program to teach the basics of proper grammar and sentence structure. I thought I would share my opinions on this homeschool curriculum option language arts.
Things I Liked:
The entire program was simple and right to the point. No fluffy extras, just a solid lesson and related worksheet questions. The worksheets would often pull material from earlier lessons so there is a nice amount of repetition for practice but it comes slowly over the course of the material rather than having to do the same thing over and over at one time (spiral approach). Each worksheet tells you which lessons are necessary, so if something has been forgotten, you don’t have to dig through the book to find where it’s covered.
I also liked the cost. We’re a homeschool family on a super-tight budget and can’t fork over a lot of money for books and curriculum. The set I’m showing here included the lesson book, workbook, answer key and separate tests all for $33. It’s a full grades-worth of work with over 100 daily lessons. You can tailor this further if you want, and buy just the workbook or just the manual, whatever works for you.
Things I Didn’t Like:
The first objection I had was that the workbook was spiral bound along the top. I know, that’s a pretty silly thing to complain about but I really hated it. The pages were printed on both sides, and I was always flipping the pages the wrong way. It was a little awkward to use when she was trying to show me her work.
I know that not everyone will agree with this, but I hated the diagramming assignments (not tons of them). We skipped those completely. She found the concept baffling and since she didn’t have difficulty putting sentences together otherwise, we didn’t feel it was worth the struggle to understand the format. More visual learners may prefer to work on them more.
Overall
Basically, I liked it and would recommend it for any kids that aren’t already struggling with the subject. My daughter reads a couple grades beyond her age and has no trouble with grammar concepts in the first place. If you are having trouble with these topics, something with a little more “teaching” may work better for you.
As a point of note, if you like the affordable and no-nonsense approach of Growing with Grammar, they also publish programs like Soaring with Spelling and Winning with Writing. We haven’t used either, though we’re looking at getting Winning with Writing for next term.
Hope this has been helpful. If you have any questions about Growing with Grammar (we used level 3), feel free to leave me a comment below.
