Need opinions on Growing With Grammar (vs. Rod & Staff English)

[carlyincali]

Hello, We used R&S for English & spelling the year before last. (Grades 2 & 4.) I personally loved it. My girls on the other hand weren't so impressed. The found it tedious and complained about too much writing, (even though we did only 1/2 or less of the required writing.) We did EVERY excersize though. (I only had them writing out the answers they could not cirle or do in the book. Most of the excersizes I had them do in the book, like circling the multiple choice letter--instead of writing out the answer. There was just way too much writing in there for them w/o doing it this way.)

This year we are using ACE PACES for English & spelling and I'm not happy with it at all. (They just aren't challenging enough after a year of R&S.)

I want to do something different for the next school year. I was going to go back to R&S, but now I have read about Growing With Grammar.

Can someone please tell me their opinions on this GWG? Also if you have used both R&S and GWG, can you please compare the two? (I would really like to have something a little more self-lead as I am a busy mom with two toddlers and another child on the way. This is why I chose ACE for this year.)

Thanks in advance.

[one l michele]

Hello, We used R&S for English & spelling the year before last. (Grades 2 & 4.) I personally loved it. My girls on the other hand weren't so impressed. The found it tedious and complained about too much writing, (even though we did only 1/2 or less of the required writing.) We did EVERY excersize though. (I only had them writing out the answers they could not cirle or do in the book. Most of the excersizes I had them do in the book, like circling the multiple choice letter--instead of writing out the answer. There was just way too much writing in there for them w/o doing it this way.)

This year we are using ACE PACES for English & spelling and I'm not happy with it at all. (They just aren't challenging enough after a year of R&S.)

I want to do something different for the next school year. I was going to go back to R&S, but now I have read about Growing With Grammar.

Can someone please tell me their opinions on this GWG? Also if you have used both R&S and GWG, can you please compare the two? (I would really like to have something a little more self-lead as I am a busy mom with two toddlers and another child on the way. This is why I chose ACE for this year.)

Thanks in advance.

Retention wasn't there with GWG. My ds looks for short cuts and found it way to easy to skim the exercise, look at the example, and blow through the worksheet without understanding the material.

We also have used R&S and didn't like how old fashion and boring it was.

We are using Flashkids Language Arts and for $5.50 at Barnes and Noble, you can't beat the price - LOL.

[Sue G in PA]

He hated grammar w/ R&S b/c it was too much repetition and writing. He much prefers the workbook style of GWG. AS for retention...I don't find that he is forgetting a lot. We do 3-4 days of grammar each week. He does GWG independently which is a big plus for me. R&S we did mostly orally and it was too time consuming for me with all the other kids I had to help. Ds9 says grammar is his favorite subject now. My dd11, on the other hand, is content with R&S. To each his/her own! I also find GWG just as thorough as R&S, the only exception being it doesn't have writing exercises. But, we didn't use them anyway! We used a separate program. HTH

[Ginger]

How many lessons are in GWG? I really loved the thoroughness of R&S3, but dd hated it. We are using Bob Jones this year, which she tolerates better, but still dislikes it. So I figure if it is just that she hates grammar, she may as well be getting the most thorough approach--so I've considered going back to R&S, but perhaps GWG would work.

[Sue G in PA]

including a Chapter Review at the end. There are no tests/quizzes...we just use the review as our assessment. Doing grammar 3x/wk, you could easily finish a book in a year. I honestly can't say enough about this program for kids who prefer a workbook approach. I say it's the secular workbook equivalent of R&S (minus the writing component)!