Grammar

Academics : Grammar - Dialectic - Rhetoric

In Grammar School—Kindergarten through 6th grade—students focus on learning basic skills: reading and math, basic facts about many different subjects including History, Bible, English, Math and Latin grammar.

Grammar school students have a remarkable ability to memorize all sorts of information, and in vast amounts. So we teach them the grammar of each subject, and have them memorize many parts of the subject matter, so they have them in their arsenal of information. By grammar, we mean the basics of the subject. The grammar of math includes the multiplication tables, counting by 2s and 5s and 10s, memorizing math facts. The grammar of history includes names of people, events, and dates. The grammar of Latin includes conjugations, declensions, vocabulary, and endings. Of course the grammar of English grammar includes punctuation rules, identifying the parts of a speech, rules for capitalization. We instruct and we reinforce by means of songs, chants, jingles, and repetition. We teach the main events, characters, and dates of the Bible, beginning with a formal study of Genesis in the 2nd grades and ending with the New Testament in 6th, the other grades covering everything in between. During the Grammar years we study history, beginning with Ancient Egypt in 2nd grade and ending with modern American history in 6th.  This study prepares them for the Dialectic Years when they begin again to study the Ancients, but with a fresh perspective as older students. The thought of studying Plato will not intimidate them because he is already familiar to them.

In Kindergarten and First Grade students learn the phonetic sounds as the basic building blocks of learning to read. They all will be capable readers by 2nd grade, but will be reading well even in Kindergarten.

They learn the basic spelling rules that govern the English language, like “when two vowels go walking, the first one often does the talking,” and also the words called “rule-breakers” that do not obey these principles.

They learn and can identify the basic parts of speech in 1st grade, i.e., noun, verb, adjective, adverb, prepositional phrase, the complete subject, and the complete predicate.

Throughout Grammar School our students focus on learning Latin grammar and their study of Latin begins in 3rd grade. As Dorothy Sayers noted in The Lost Tools of Learning: “Latin should be begun as early as possible--at a time when inflected speech seems no more astonishing than any other phenomenon in an astonishing world; and when the chanting of "Amo, amas, amat" is as ritually agreeable to the feelings as the chanting of "eeny, meeny, miney, moe."

“I will say at once, quite firmly, that the best grounding for education is the Latin grammar. I say this, not because Latin is traditional and mediaeval, but simply because even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of learning almost any other subject by at least fifty percent.” (emphasis added)

The acquisition of Latin is an extremely profitable method of teaching precision, vocabulary, English, and disciplining the mind, in addition to preparing students to master Greek (during the Dialectic years) and any modern Romance languages based on Latin.

As well, in math the students learn the basic facts of addition and subtraction in Kindergarten and begin to memorize their math facts. Building on this late in 1st grade they start memorizing their multiplication tables. In 2nd grade times tables are mastered and division introduced. By 6th grade’s end they have completed Pre-Algebra and are ready to start Algebra I in 7th grade.

The secret to retaining what has been memorized is review, review, review. For students of the Grammar School age, repeating facts they know is no trouble, and actually fun for them. Beginning in 2nd grade we incorporate a portion of the day called Memory Period. During this time the students review the things they’ve memorized that year and in years past, so that they never have the opportunity to forget what they’ve learned. During Memory Period we review or learn history facts, poetry, Bible verses, science facts, and other items the children need to have committed to memory.

Academics : Grammar - Dialectic - Rhetoric