by Donna | Sep 13, 2013
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| image from wordmr. |
If you have a newer edition of CQLA, you likely have weekly quizzes called “Think Fast Grammar Quiz.” When we created these, we originally thought that parents would use the Grammar Cards (available in Level B and C books and in the Teacher’s Guide) to grade their students’ quizzes.
Then we began teaching/testing the editions that contain these quizzes and discovered that it wasn’t as easy as we had previously thought to just use the Grammar Cards to check the quizzes–and to help your student categorize and study the grammar words.
So we created the document below to be used both as an Answer Key as well as a study guide for the Think Fast Grammar Quiz. It will be in a future edition of the Teacher’s Guide, and when our new website is done this fall, it will be available there as well. In the meantime, we are emailing the document to anyone who calls or emails us asking for it–and we are putting it here at the blog in the hopes that word will get out and parents will find it.
We use it to grade our testing students’ quizzes, but we also use it in the following way:
1. We have the student fill in as much of each part of the quiz as he or she can—then highlight the line in which he left off on his own. Then we have him look in the AK to find more and finish filling in the lines with the ones from the AK. This shows us what he already knows and what he had to look up, but it also helps him to learn more of them by writing them out as he looks them up in the AK.
2. We also assign portions of the AK for homework. For example, we will have all students study the section in the AK that has opposite prepositions or prepositions that begin with B, etc. This makes the AK into a sort of Study Guide for the student and has really helped them learn the words in categories as opposed to long lists of them.
Please share this post with fellow CQLA users so that we can get the word out that there is a lengthy, detailed, helpful Answer Key for the Think Fast Grammar Quiz! 😉
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9s1gDz0XKhwVW9YcDRpSHpHZU0/edit?usp=sharing
by Donna | Sep 10, 2013
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| Speaking about “Building Study Skills and Comprehension” at a conference |
There are many aspects of teaching a child how to learn, one of which is working to increase our children’s comprehension. When people have good comprehension, they can learn anything, anywhere, anytime.
There are three primary ways that we have worked to increase our children’s comprehension: (1) Discussion with parents and those more knowledgeable than the child; (2) Good questions following reading or discussions; and (3) Provide a rich background of experience.
The first two of those go hand-in-hand. Discussion of everything with our children from very young ages has given our kids experiences in areas that they would normally not have experiences in. It gives us the opportunity to teach all the time—and gives them learning hooks that they create with the discussion material to bring into other learning situations.
Good questions, not just rote questions, help the student think more deeply about subjects and allow you to observe his thought processes and help them along. Lastly, a rich background of experience gives your student the edge in learning any subject. Like discussion, it gives a child more knowledge, more background, more information to bring into future learning scenarios.
I am adding some information about teaching children how to learn, good materials, links to articles, etc., in the sidebar of this article for those who would like to study this further. Just being aware of always teaching our kids how to learn, how to study, how to research, how to further their understanding is a big step in teaching kids how to learn.
SIDEBAR….
Tips and Links for Teaching Children How to Learn
~People often ask us what we would have done differently in our homeschool. One of the things I would have done differently is that every child, every year would have done a thinking skills book of some sort from the Critical Thinking Company: https://www.criticalthinking.com/index.jsp?code=c
by Donna | Aug 24, 2013
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| Eng111cafe clip art |
A is for APPOSITIVE!
We teach the appositive extensively in our writing and language arts books because it is an amazing conciseness technique–and it shows a student’s skill in handling difficult grammar concepts and punctuation challenges. Plus, it truly does help a student write more concisely!
Here is the basic of this grammar item:
1. Is a phrase that restates something else.
2. Is usually used to restate (or elaborate on) the subject (though it can be used to restate anything really.
3. Is set off with commas if it falls in the middle of the sentence. (Remember: Anything that is set off with commas should be “removable” and a complete sentence remains without it!)
4. Can be used to combine two sentences into one in short, choppy sentences.
Example:
Donna writes language arts and composition books every day.
Donna has written over fifty curriculum texts.
Donna, WHO HAS WRITTEN OVER FIFTY CURRICULUM TEXTS, writes language arts and composition books every day.
Cool, huh?
A is for APPOSITIVE
Did you know that last week’s PUNCTUATION PUZZLE had an appositive in it?
I had barely noticed her mood, HER TEMPERAMENT, when she suddenly blew up, and she began shouting and throwing things at me, which was something I was not accustomed to seeing.
Notice the following:
1. Her temperament renames the noun mood.
2. It is set off with commas surrounding it (her temperament).
3. It (along with the commas) can be removed from the sentence, and a complete sentence remains.
by Donna | Jul 31, 2013
The prefix ir is an interesting prefix for a number of reasons:
1. It means not. There are many prefixes that can mean not, such as de, a, un, non; however, ir also means not, which is interesting to me because I don’t think it sounds like it should mean not! To me, it sounds like it should mean again or repeating or something besides not!
2. It only comes before base words that begin with R. In other words, you do not put ir in front of most any word to mean not, like you often do with un or non.
3. This isn’t really interesting–but I like to say it whenever I teach about prefixes. A prefix is a letter or group of letters that you “affix” (which is why it and suffixes are called affixes) to the beginning of a word. It is important to remember that a prefix does not change the spelling of the base word. That is especially crucial in spelling ir words because the ir precedes an R already–and you must keep the base word’s spelling, so when you add this prefix to a word, you will ALWAYS have two R’s in a row: irregular, irresponsible, etc.
4. It is most often put before a word that is should never come before: regardless. We hear people constantly say irregardless, which is, of course, an oxymoronic word because less means without (or not) and ir means not. I guess that makes it sort of like using a double negative! You do not put ir before regardless because regardless already means without regard. With ir in front of it, you are saying not without regard, I guess…. Anyway, irregardless is not a word. So don’t use it. Okay? 🙂
Note: It is correct, however, to use irrespective, which is a substitute (some of the time) for when you are tempted to say irregardless.
However, there are many base words that begin with R that can have ir put before them to mean NOT or the opposite of what the base word means before ir is added to it.
Here is a list to get you started. Notice how if you take the ir off, you have a positive base word (or one that means yes–yes regular, yes responsible, yes revocable, etc.) However, with the ir, the word means not—not regular, not responsible, not revocable, etc.
Remember: You know more than you think you know!
And remember: Use what you already know to learn even more!
irregular
irresponsible
irrevocable
irrefutable
irradiate
irreconcilable
irredeemable
irreducible
irrefutable
irregularity
irrelevant
irreverence
irreligious
irreparable
irreplaceable
irreversible
irresolute
irretrievable
irresistible
Irrelevant
