grammar reviews Archives - Pea of Sweetness

Our once resistant six year old has been loving Jolly Phonics from jollyliteracy.com. He has been learning his letter sounds in a whole new way and has been making amazing progress! Plus he’s had a great time singing songs in Jolly Songs to help reinforce his learning! just2ducks LLC also sent us Jolly Grammar from their jollyliteracy.com division for our Jolly Grammar and Jolly Phonics review.

Jolly Phonics Review

Chaz has been using Jolly Phonics regularly (3-4 days per week). I started him at the very beginning because he has writing challenges due to his special needs. Although he does know many letter sounds, I thought it would be best to follow the progression as it is presented in Jolly Phonics.
The Jolly Phonics program includes three Jolly Phonics Student Books – Jolly Phonics Student Book 1, 2 and 3. It also includes the Jolly Phonics Teacher’s Book in print letters which covers all three of the Student Books.
The Teacher’s Book offers daily guidance for teaching the Jolly Phonics program. It includes a detailed introduction as well as detailed information for the concepts the child will be learning including:

The Letter Sounds of the English Language
Learning the Letter Sounds
Learning Letter Formation
Reading (Blending)
Identifying the Sounds in Words
Tricky Words

I was impressed with all the details it includes. Once it breaks down into the Daily Guidance for Teaching, it explains the best way to go about teaching the lessons. We have been using Book 1, so each lesson includes a story to read to introduce the letter sounds. Each letter sound is taught using an action to help them remember the letter sound, so the story helps to introduce this action as well.

Jolly Phonics Review – Student Book 1

Chaz has been happily working through his Jolly Phonics Student Book 1. He’s been learning individual letter sounds as well as progressing to blend those letter sounds as the new letter sounds are introduced. He has been working on writing his letters as well as identifying pictures/words that contain the letter sound.
We have been treating each letter sound as a lesson. So each one is one page long. So each lesson only takes around 15-20 minutes. His biggest struggle is writing the letters. He has been enjoying the lessons so much, though, that he is actually attempting to write the letters, which is major progress. Generally he refuses to even try. We also brought out the white board to give him more practice as well.

Jolly Phonics Review – Student Books 2 & 3

We haven’t yet progressed to the Jolly Phonics Student Book 2 and Student Book 3. They are quite a bit different. In Student Book 1 we continue to progress through letter sounds and blending them together through the basic 42 letter sounds. Starting in Student Book 2 there are already full words presented right at the beginning. It presents alternative letter-sound spellings, more handwriting, tricky words and words and sentences. Capital letters are also introduced.
Jolly Phonics Student Book 3 presents more letter-sound alternative spellings, tricky words, comprehension and words and sentences. Of course, it also includes handwriting, but in this book there is free writing and dictation.

Jolly Songs Review

Jolly Songs complements what we’ve been learning in Student Book 1. It presents the letter sounds in songs written to familiar tunes. It includes a music CD you can play to sing along. I found knowing the tune alone made it possible to sing the songs without the CD. The songs also include the motions he has been learning to remember the letters.

Jolly Grammar Review

We haven’t yet progressed to Jolly Grammar. It includes the Jolly Grammar 1 Teacher’s Book in print letters and Jolly Grammar 1 Student Book. If following the recommended progression, Jolly Grammar follows the completion of all three Jolly Phonics books. It builds on what they have learned in Jolly Phonics and covers a variety of grammar concepts including: common nouns, pronouns, plurals, verbs (including conjugating verbs), adjectives, adverbs, definite and indefinite articles, sentences, questions, identifying parts of speech, improving vocabulary and using a dictionary.
I am really surprised by all it covers! The Teacher’s Book once again provides detailed information about the concept they’ll be learning as well as lesson information. Each lesson is one page long and has a corresponding page in the Teacher’s Book.

Connect with jollyliteracy.com (just2ducks LLC)

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
Other members of the Schoolhouse Review shared their Jolly Grammar and Jolly Phonics review as well. They have children of different ages and abilities, so be sure to check out their reviews by clicking on the banner below!

I love grammar. More importantly, I love correct grammar. Because of this it’s always something I’ve been particular about teaching our kids whether it’s formal instruction or just impromptu lessons when something comes up. It actually hasn’t been easy finding grammar resources for younger children like ours – even our oldest two who are ages 7 and 9 and working at a Third Grade level. I was really excited to check out Sheldon’s New Primary Language Lessons from Brookdale House.

Brookdale House offers a variety of multi purpose homeschool curricula for Elementary age children that is predominately centered around writing and language. They place an emphasis on child-centered learning and design their books around the natural way children learn. The writing curriculum was developed around the Charlotte Mason method and/or are Charlotte Mason friendly. We, personally, have an ecletic style, but I always appreciate knowing the style of the curricula. Sheldon’s New Primary Language Lessons is noted to fit well with Classical education as well.
For our review we received the printed book. It is a standard size workbook with over 200 pages of lessons as well as a Preface, information on using the text for both the child and instructor, Table of Contents and an Appendix in the back with answer key. It is recommended for Pages can be photocopied for use only within the family. Because our older two children are at the same educational level, I often teach them together, so this is a feature we definitely appreciate!

The Shedon’s New Primary Language Lessons contains 96 lessons. It is noted in the beginning that they are just that – lessons. Some lessons may only take a few minutes (we have completed a few in less than 10 minutes) while others may need to be broken up in multiple days. So far, we have been able to complete every lesson within a day. We use it 4-5 times per week and although we usually complete one lesson per day, there have been a few days where we’ve completed two or even three in a day.
I have found this curriculum to be unlike any curricula we have used. It has a really nice and extensive blend of important language concepts and activities. It covers parts of speech, copywork (both cursive and manuscript), punctuation, sentences, paragraphs, dictation, narration, poetry and more. I have found the kids really respond well to the variety offered in this curriculum, and I love that they’re learning grammar while practicing many different important language skills.
Although it is a workbook I have still found it can be flexible when needed. For example, even if the copywork is in cursive, I allow our children to choose how they would like to copy it. If they choose something different than what is on the page, I simply write the sentences on the white board. Of course, I do try to encourage them to use whichever form is used on that lesson but our oldest son, in particular, has challenges with writing due to his special needs, so I am very cautious not to discourage him which sometimes means we have to do things a little differently.

Something I love is that our children have been challenged in both comprehension as well as imagination. Questions in some lessons have concrete answers. We may read a short story or poem and have questions pertaining to it. Some of the questions are answered based on comprehension or answers in the story and others ask them questions that aren’t answered in the story. They can answer these questions using their imagination. Questions are sometimes answered orally while others are written. I love that they are challenged in so many different areas!
In addition to interactive lessons, I found it unique that there is also memory work as well. There are a total of 7 poems overall. I have followed the suggestions given in the beginning. So I introduce the poems by reading them to the kids a couple of times, I ask them to repeat the first few lines with me and once they can recite those lines I add the next set until they have memorized the whole poem. Once the first poem was introduced, this was something that we did each time before that day’s lesson.
Overall, we are definitely loving this curriculum. It’s thorough, presented in a way that our kids enjoy and learn from well, and offers a variety of activities. They have been writing, listening, memorizing, dictating, and doing work orally. Of course, they are also learning the fundamentals of grammar like punctuation, sentences, names and capitals, nouns and so much more. I am really impressed with everything that is covered!
For more information be sure to connect with Brookdale House on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+.
Many members from the Schoolhouse Review Crew reviewed various curricula from Brookdale House. Be sure to read their reviews by clicking on the button below!

Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar Review