Category: Grammar

In the Summer 2014 Classical Teacher, I wrote an extensive article exploring the question, “What is the Classical Approach to Phonics?” The contention of that article was that there are two basic approaches to phonics in the classical education world: the traditional method and the Spalding method. The Spalding method is based on the book The Writing Road to Reading (WRTR), …

Why Recite?  Forget matching, multiple choice, or fill-in the blanks. If you want a child to really know–truly own–a body of information, Recitation is the only way to go. Previously the sole method of testing, Recitation requires mastery of a subject like no other testing mechanism can. With nowhere to hide and no opportunity for …

I have taught classics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee since 1973. During these years, I have noticed a decline in the verbal skills of my students.   It is embodied in the difficulties that they have in reading comprehension and English composition, as well as in the fact that few are capable of studying a foreign language …

REASON #4: Education A classical education focuses on the study of the classical languages, Latin and Greek, and on the study of the classical civilization of Greece and Rome.  But why is the word classical reserved only for the languages of the Greeks and Romans and only for their civilization?  What really is so special …

    The REAL Reason Our Educational Elites Don’t Like Grammar In Leo Tolstoy’s great Christian novel Anna Karenina, an after-dinner conversation turns to the subject of which European nation is more civilized—the English, the French, or the German. Karnenin, Anna’s husband, asserts that that civilization is most influential which is the most “truly educated.” …

Q:  Why doesn’t English grammar stick? A:  Because we don’t follow the natural order: memorization in the grammar stage and analysis in the logic stage. The name grammar school comes from the early Renaissance, when the major subject of the elementary years was the Latin grammar. The young grammar student memorized Latin grammar forms—declensions and conjugations—and gradually …

Why a Knowledge of Grammar Is Indispensable for an Understanding of Logic I meet a lot of homeschool mothers at conventions all over the country and one of the most common questions I get is this: “What do you do for a critical thinking skills program before we do your logic program in the seventh grade?” …

I went to my hotel after a long day at a homeschool convention. It was late, and I was hungry. So, after checking in, I decided to walk to a Subway I had seen to get a sandwich. By the time I walked out of the hotel lobby, clouds had moved in, and the rain …