A Full Year of High School Grammar for Homeschoolers
I’ve never been one to push grammar repetitively on my homeschool children, but I do want them to have a full year and in-depth study of homeschool grammar for teens.
Not only is grammar important for the SAT exam but it is a foundational skill for upper-level writing courses in high school and college.
I was absolutely thrilled to see that Mr. D added an American English Grammar course to his options this year because we love using self-paced courses from Mr. D. It was a perfect solution to my search for a homeschool grammar course for teens.
{I was offered access to American English Grammar in exchange for my honest opinions. We have always had great success with Mr. D courses so I was eager to check this one out. Please note this post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure.}
Homeschool Grammar for Teens
My 9th-grade teacher is the reason I continue to have an understanding of American English grammar. She was so unimpressed with the grammar knowledge of our class that she dropped everything to teach us grammar for a month.
She was determined to fill in the gap in our English studies and she certainly did.
Now that I am a homeschooling mom, I understand that a solid year of grammar in the teen years is something I can give my teens before they head off to their future endeavors.
Of course, I no longer remember every single part of speech and grammar rules I learned during my 9th-grade year so I was excited when Mr. D added American English Grammar to his list of online courses.
English Grammar for Teens: The Basics
American English Grammar from Mr. D is a great choice for your high schooler or advanced middle school student.
This course is an in-depth, full-year study of the grammar of American English. It’s a great way to help students prepare for the writing portions of college entrance exams and lays a firm foundation for upper-level high school English classes.
What I love about this course is that it includes more than just grammar. Your student will also have the option to include note-taking skills and vocabulary in their lessons.
Grammar Lessons
The grammar lessons include complete video instruction on the following American English Grammar topics:
Sentence Types
Prepositions
Conjunctions
Subject and Predicate
Objects
Collections of Words
Sentence Structure
Nouns and Pronouns
Verbs and Verbals
Verb Forms and Conjugations
Adjectives and Adverbs
Capitalization and Punctuation
Every grammar lesson includes instruction, practice, and an online quiz to check your knowledge.
Vocabularly Building
The grammar lessons each week include five vocabulary words for your student to learn, review, and apply. The words each week are typically chosen from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift or The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman.
These vocabulary words are designed to expand your teen’s vocabulary for life as well as the SAT!
Each week your teen will complete the following for all five words:
– Copywork using a sentence from literature
– Identify the part of speech
– Identify the grammar function of the word as used in the copywork
– Look up and copy the best definition based on the context
– Look up the roots of the word and language of origin
After learning the words, your teen will complete an online quiz to test their knowledge and understanding of the words.
Cornell Note-Taking
In the welcome section of the Mr. D grammar course, the Cornell Note-Taking Method is explained. The Cornell Method is a well-known method for taking and organizing notes. It was developed by a professor at Cornell University in the 1950’s and remains popular to this day.
Mrs. Jenni, the instructor for American English Grammar with Mr. D, explains it to the student this way:
“The process of creating Cornell Notes by hand also helps form new neural pathways so that you can encode the information. The Cornell System asks you to summarize the information on the bottom of each page, which requires further critical thinking and offers yet another tool for easily finding the information you need. Plus, the Cue Column allows you to create a pre-testing tool while you are processing your notes.
The goal is to create notes that are neat, well organized, easily scan-able, with thoughtful questions, and concise summaries. “
After learning this method in week one, your teen will be given the opportunity to use this method each week while watching the grammar videos. After taking notes, they will use a rubric to score their attempt each week as they learn this method.
Why We Love Mr. D Courses
It’s not a secret that our family loves Mr. D’s courses. Afteryears of using Mr. D’s courses, we are huge fans! The self-paced courses are easy to use, offer flexibility, and are well organized.
This English grammar course is another great class we can now add to our list of favorites.
Check out our experience with several math courses and ASL:
How Mr. D Math Restored my Homeschool Sanity
5 Reasons we are Sticking with Mr. D Math in Our Homeschool
How to Successfully Homeschool Pre-Algebra with Ease
Boost Your SAT Math Scores with Mr. D Math
How to Easily Learn ASL 1 with Mr. D Sign Lanugage
Flexiblity
While the note-taking and vocabulary lessons are fantastic, you could certainly complete the grammar lessons without requiring note-taking or vocabulary.
My high schoolers both learn note-taking skills at their local English class so we decided to simply focus on the grammar lessons right now. I do hope to add the vocabulary to our schedule as time allows because the words are well chosen.
In addition, this self-paced course allows your teenager to complete it at their own pace. You can select a schedule that works best for your student. They can complete the course in a semester, a full school year, or even of the course of two years.
Ease of Use
The American English Grammar, like all of Mr. D’s self-paced courses, is very easy to use. The course welcome and sign-up videos include a complete overview of the grammar year. The instructor describes how to get organized for the course and how to use the course.
Each week the grammar printables are clearly marked for printing so you have everything at your fingertips for the week. There is no digging around for the worksheets you need each day!
Well Organized
Mr. D’s online classes are well organized so it is easy to plan, implement, and track your teen’s progress. This homeschool grammar course for teens is no exception.
Every week begins with a section called “Print These” and it contains all of the necessary files to print for the week.
Next, the grammar lesson contains a video or series of videos on the week’s grammar topic. If your student is practicing the Cornell method of note-taking then they should take notes while watching. The Cornell Notes section contains reminders about the method with a sample of notes from the video lesson. Your student can score their own notes using the rubric and then submit their score.
The next section focuses on the grammar assignments that use excerpts from classic texts. The students should attempt to complete these activities on their own based on the lesson. The excerpt section does contain a video for additional help. Once your student finishes the worksheets, they can take the quiz to submit their work.
The final sections include assignments for vocabulary and a quiz to take after spending a week with the words.
American English Grammar: Final Pro-Tip
If you are like me, you might have forgotten how to identify a preposition or the various types of verbals. This can be difficult when you are helping your child understand why they missed a question on the quiz.
All you have to do is email the course instructor and they will provide you with the answer keys for all of the quizzes!
It is so helpful to have the correct answer available when I am helping my child.
Ready to learn more? Check out Mr. D’s course options, including American English Grammar, by clicking the button below:
She believes that creativity, laughter, and fun are the backbone for engaging and inspiring homeschools. You can find her encouragement and tips on this blog, Mary Hanna Wilson.
She is an enneagram 7 and an extrovert. She enjoys traveling, tea (iced or hot), good conversations, and books. You can connect with her on Instagram and Facebook.
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