Anyone use a Beka language in 7th grade and up?

[songbirdie]

:grouphug:
I'd like to hear from anyone who actually used a Beka language from 7th grade and on into high school. From their scope and sequence it says for every one of those grades, "the eight parts of speech, sentence diagramming," and etc. What I'd like to know is if it's the same thing for 6 years, or if there really is the building of MORE knowledge each year. And I'd also like to know if it ever goes into the other important things besides just those main 8 parts of speech, like infinitives, gerunds, nominative case, objective case, interjections, ALL the tenses, including the participles and perfect tenses. . .and even more. Can anyone help me here?:confused:

[KLynnTX]

Yes, it does get deeper, and Abeka does cover all that you mentioned.

[songbirdie]

Thank you, KLynnTX!! :001_smile:

[Michelle in MO]

Ditto to KLynnTX; it does get deeper every year, and will give your student a thorough foundation in grammar. I did not do all of their writing assignments, however, but used the ones that I thought best plus some from other sources.

Also, I would do something else for reading. I thought Abeka's literature program was very weak. The grammar, however, is very thorough.

[Orthodox6]

I have used ABeka, at times, for grades 7-12. The grammar course is such hyper-drive, overkill, I finally yielded to the advice from other ABeka users to assign only some of the exercises, and save the others for review and reinforcement.

I tend to use too many commas, a function of how many years ago I was taught traditional English. Oddly, I thought ABeka bordered on the insane for how many commas they prescribed for "correct usage" !

[Susan C.]

Also, I would do something else for reading. I thought Abeka's literature program was very weak. The grammar, however, is very thorough.


I liked A Beka's Literature for grades 10-12 (but not the grades 7-9).

[vmsurbat]

There is a great deal of overlap between the books although each one *does* go deeper. I've found that the books go in sets of two: 7/8, 9/10, 11/12 in that each set's grammar instruction is so similiar as to be "virtually" the same. Thus, we use one book from each of the first two sets (8, 9) because that is what I happen to have. I think it would be more ideal to use either 7/9 or 8/10 and that is what I would do if just starting out.

We finish the grammar portion in a year (like others I assign only a portion of the "circle/underline" type and ALL the "write an example of XYZ grammar-construct type") and then take a break with something else. I like to use Jensen's Grammar either before or after 7/8, and Jensen's Punctuation after 9/10. For example, the sequence my daughter is following goes like this: Abeka 8, Jensen's Grammar, Abeka 9, Jensen's Punctuation, Abeka 11, Abeka 12.

The 11/12 grade books are also similiar in layout, but I like the fact that the students need to dig into the handbook (and thus get familiar with it) and many of the exercises are centered around the premise of using good grammar to construct good sentences and are valuable in their own right.

HTH,

[Musicmom]

We've used A Beka grammar every year from 7th up (actually from 4th grade up :)) It's very thorough. It does review everything each year but adds more depth each year through 10th. The 11th and 12th grade books are laid out quite differently--they switch from instruction to comprehensive review using the Handbook as a resource. I found using the series a relatively painless way of learning grammar thoroughly--we did about 2 pages a day (took 15-20 minutes) doing only half of each set of exercises unless more practice was needed, and we easily finished the book before the end of the school year. The result of all the review is my dc really know their grammar--forwards, backwards and inside out! Ds, who has now finished the entire series, can remember and discuss authoritatively any obscure advanced grammar concept you care to name! :lol: There's something hilarious about it when he does that, since most of us adults really don't remember much beyond the parts of speech off the top of our heads!

I only used the composition portion of the books occasionally to supplement our writing curriculum. For example, precis is one writing form that we didn't find covered in our other curriculum, and ds learned it quite well through A Beka.

HTH