Homeschoolers who have used Easy Grammar and Daily Grams curricula have found them easy to teach and effective in providing their children with a solid framework for mastering the English language. Wanda Phillips shares information about the development of these series, as well as helpful teaching tips.

Tell us a little bit about your background as an educator. What led to your interest in grammar and writing?

I earned a B.S. in Secondary Education from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania in 1969 and a Master of Arts in educational leadership from Northern Arizona University. My interest in writing and grammar are reflected in the fact that I was an undergraduate English major. After teaching English in the East at the high school level, I moved to the West and began teaching junior high.

From both my secondary and junior high experiences, I realized that the English texts were not set up to promote mastery learning. Often concepts were introduced once and taught in isolation; this obviously was not conducive to mastery learning. I also learned the prepositional approach, that of deleting prepositional phrases from the sentence in order to determine subject and verb and as an aid in simplifying English. I also realized that texts frequently asked students to learn too much too fast. This not only overwhelmed students, but also tended to have a negative effect on learning. As an educator, I did task analysis to determine that which should be taught first and then proceeded to build upon that knowledge in such a way that concepts were easy to understand and memorable. I also began to use a spiraling approach, including cumulative reviews and tests to ascertain that the students didn’t forget what they had learned. With knowledge of how students learned, I designed a very different English grammar curriculum.

A district administrator noticed my class’s high achievement test scores. When I was asked to teach my successful program to other teachers, I realized that the Lord had given me the insights and talents and that my techniques should be shared with other children. Organizing all of my folders, I wrote my first Easy Grammar book. Within a few years, the Lord placed me in the elementary setting, and I continued to develop that series. Having taught elementary, junior high, and high school, I developed insights concerning scope and sequence and academic expectations others without that experience lacked.

The development of the Daily Grams series is rather interesting. I had taught English at the junior high level for nearly 10 years when I was asked to teach math. After a rather disconcerting first effort, I was introduced to a program that provided five review questions each day—to be done the first 10 minutes of each class period. I was amazed at my students’ increased mastery. I questioned why no one was doing this for English and wrote my first Daily Grams texts. I knew from experience that students needed to use their capitalization and punctuation skills. Therefore, in the 180 lessons, one for each school day, I made the first question a capitalization review and the second a punctuation review. In questions 3 and 4, I spiraled grammar concepts, dictionary skills, and other concepts so that a review usually occurs every 25–30 days. For improved writing skills, question 5 is always a sentence combining. These have been carefully arranged so that students can use a variety of sentence structures to express themselves at a higher level. Again, the Daily Grams are reviews, designed for the students to do a lesson on their own the first few minutes of the English class period. It should take the parent only five minutes or so to discuss answers before moving on the regular instruction.

In your Easy Grammar workbooks, you recommend that teachers encourage students to memorize a list of prepositions as a first step to learning concepts of grammar. Why do you feel that the prepositional approach is more effective than other methods?

Some have asked why I use crossing out of prepositional phrases rather than diagramming or other methods to teach grammar concepts. The answer is simple: the prepositional phrase approach works for everyone. In my 25 years of teaching, all students were successful with this process. In fact, for many students, it was the first time that they didn’t struggle with English. Although I personally enjoy diagramming, I encountered students who found it terribly confusing. Why use a method that confuses some when the prepositional approach is successful and works for everyone?

In your experience, what have you found to be the most difficult aspects of grammar to teach? What tips can you share with home educators to help them teach these aspects to their children?

I believe that pronoun usage is probably the most difficult of the eight parts of speech. To effectively teach it, one has to teach the discreet skills along the way. For example, I introduce predicate nominatives under verbs, reintroduce them under nouns, and again introduce them under pronouns where they affect speaking and writing correctly. My teaching strategy is simple. To prove a predicate nominative, we invert the sentence as a proof. For example, The winner is Susan becomes Susan is the winner. Students find this difficult concept quite simple when using this method. Having used this technique successfully throughout the text, students readily understand its relationship to correct pronoun usage. It’s easy for them to see that The winner is she is correct; the proof: She is the winner. In teaching this complex idea in such a simplistic form in Easy Grammar, I have just provided students with a lifetime learning strategy that can be used anywhere or anytime.

Some ask if I am an advocate of whole language. I am not. To change behavior, one usually needs to offer a new experience many times. Thus, if a student writes had ran, noting that it should be had run on the paper will do little to change academic behavior. In fact, the child will probably continue to use the incorrect usage because it “sounds” right. In order to change academic behavior, experiences must be provided to use the concept correctly; Easy Grammar teaches proper grammar and provides ample practice.

In an effort to unleash students’ creativity, writing teachers often ask children to engage in stream-of-consciousness exercises that downplay attention to grammar and style. Do you agree with this free-flowing method of teaching writing? If not, why not?

Do I believe in the stream-of-consciousness style of writing? First, let me emphatically state that I believe that creative writing and expository writing (such as a report) are very different. Therefore, teaching these two very unique types of writing should be approached differently. I believe that a free flow of thought is acceptable on the first draft of a creative piece. However, when one begins to refine the writing, grammar usage, spelling, and mechanics should be required. My perception is that creative writing is the predominant type of writing at the primary level; it simply encourages language experience. However, by the intermediate level, students should be taught to read for information, to take notes, to analyze information, and to present it in their own words. Students should have the opportunity to write some short stories and other creative writing pieces. However, teaching creative writing to the exclusion of informational writing is not a good idea.

Again, the whole language people and I differ in our approach. Whereas they believe in teaching a concept when it needs to be used in writing, I strongly believe that usage and mechanics should be taught separately so that students can readily apply them. Many whole language advocates feel that applying rules learned tends to limit the expression of ideas. I believe that parents need to teach the rules. When the rules are mastered, they can be applied automatically and, most certainly, will not interfere with the creative flow of ideas.

Some homeschoolers may find teaching grammar to be a little dry. What advice can you offer to make lessons more fun for both teachers and students?

My advice for homeschoolers is to show enthusiasm for English and to make grammar interesting. Involve the students as much as possible. With my Easy Grammar and Daily Grams texts, students are actively engaged in the process of crossing out and marking the direct object, etc. Plus, I offer parents strategies for effective teaching which often includes activities and ideas for “action” and kinesthetic learning. Also, let’s not forget that Easy Grammar method makes sense, and this in itself appeals to students. When a student understands why one says This is he when answering the telephone, he is more likely to use it. Ultimately, the goal of teaching grammar is for the student to speak and to write properly.

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