Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am a serious grammar snob, a classroom teacher, a curriculum writer, parent to four children ages 4 to 18, and (in case you missed it) a serious grammar snob. I loved this book! The lessons are short and clear. There is a lot of variety in the practice activities and they are scaffolded well. Each two-page spread is visually clean, feels manageable, and is interesting. Plus, I didn’t find any mistakes in its explanations! It is nice to find a book where the information presented is accurate. The book cover describes it as being “for parents looking to build their child’s understanding of grammar and supplement what they’re already learning in school.” I think it does an excellent job. I would recommend this for all homeschoolers and public school children! One tiny quibble: nowhere is there a list of skills covered. The table of contents says only Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5. There is no index. If your child needed to work on a particular skill, such as prepositions, you would have to read the entire book to find the relevant pages. Therefore, here’s the list: Grade 3: subjects and predicates, nouns, concrete and abstract nouns, common and proper nouns, capitalization of proper nouns, singular and plural nouns, irregular plural nouns, possessives, action verbs, verb tense, irregular verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adjectives that compare, adverbs, conjunctions, simple and compound sentences, capitalization in titles, commas in a series, writing quotations Grade 4: complete sentences, sentence fragments, run-on sentences, simple subjects and simple predicates, compound subjects and compound predicates, compound sentences, relative pronouns, relative adverbs, linking verbs, main verbs and helping verbs, progressive verb tense, adjective categories, adjective order, prepositions, prepositional phrases, commonly confused words, titles of works, commas in quotations, commas and coordinating conjunctions, proofreading Grade 5: possessive nouns, using irregular verbs, verbs with direct objects, using the present tense, perfect verb tense, troublesome verb pairs, spelling verbs correctly, subject pronouns, object pronouns, possessive pronouns, contractions, homophones, predicate adjectives, using more or most with adjectives, comparative adverbs, adjective or adverb?, correlative conjunctions, using commas, subject-verb agreement, writing compound sentences The Grades 6, 7, and 8 book in this series does not have positive reviews because the simple two-page coverage of each topic isn’t sufficient at that level for the complexities of advanced grammar. However, for the lessons above (many of which are taught in Montessori schools in first and second grades), this format is quite suitable. I received a free advance copy of this book from the publisher and am giving an honest non-compulsory review.