Sentence Analysis (Montessori)

I have read about sentence analysis or some might call it, sentence diagramming, a long time back. But at that time, I had no idea how to do it and what was the purpose of it, despite reading about it up teen times.

 

Recently, I looked it up again because I wanted Sonshine to learn more about sentence structure. I find that our schools don't take enough time to teach the students about proper sentence structures. In fact, our students are made to dive right into writing a story even before they truly know how to compose proper sentences. Hence, many are left to guess or go by their 'feel' when it comes to writing. I am a living product of this education, sometimes I just know a sentence is wrong because, it just 'sounds' wrong. I don't really know why nor can I explain it. And that's why my grammar is so bad.

 

So I went researching and sentence diagramming appeared on my screen. This time, I studied it thoroughly. Something must have changed in me like maybe I got smarter over time (yah right!), this time, I understood sentence diagramming perfectly. I was blown by it and even had loads of fun learning how to diagram sentences.

 

That said, while I have finally have the know-how in sentence analysis, I am still not clear what is the true objective of it.

 

In her book 'Writing with Ease', Susan Wise Bauer believes that to write well, the student needs to know put his ideas into order. She feels that diagramming will help the student in this aspect. There are other benefits of diagramming, raised by others. You can research more here if you like. But of course, there are also the detractors who feel that it is unnecessary.

 

Well, it did help me to 'see' the relationships of the words and phrases in a sentence better. Also, I do feel that I am more equipped to understand complex sentences now that I know how to diagram sentences.

 

But what bugs me is that I fail to understand how diagramming can help to improve writing and correct grammar? I still have not figure this out yet at this point. This was the reason why I toiled and wondered if I should teach Sonshine this, because if it doesn't help in writing, then why bother learning?

 

In the end, I made the decision to teach him for one simple, and probably shallow, reason- because it is fun. I have decided that anything else that comes with it is added bonus. But like I said, I have discover some of the benefits of diagramming and so I do think it is good for one to know this skill.

 

After that much blabbering, what exactly is sentence diagramming or sentence analysis? It is essentially graphing out a sentence or breaking it down into parts. If you want to know more, you can google for it and many articles will show up to fill you in. It is essentially an American 'thing'. Apparently, the American students in the past were made to learn this but not so much now.  

 

So, I shall now present how one can diagram a sentence using Montessori method. Note I am not following the authentic way but you will get the idea. To do the following you need to have a set of Montessori sentence analysis symbols. You can download this for free here.

 

First let's take a look at this sentence: 

 

 

 

Read the sentence and identify what is the predicate; what is the main action of this statement?

 

You should have picked out 'read'. 'Read' being the main action is called the predicate (of this sentence).

 

Place black arrow indicating 'Who is that? What is that?' on the left side of the predicate. Ask the child, who or what is doing this action?

 

 

It is 'I' who is executing the action 'read'. Hence 'I' makes the subject of this statement.

 

Next, place the black arrow 'Whom? what?' on the right side of the predicate. Ask the child what is the subject reading?

 

The subject is reading 'a book' and that makes the direct object of the sentence.

 

By now, the chart should look like this.

 

The phrase 'at home' is the only one left uncharted. Take the orange arrow 'where?' and place it under the predicate. Ask the child 'where is the subject reading the book?'

 

The answer is 'at home' which is the preposition object of the sentence.

 

Your final chart should look like this.

 

Here's another example:

 

The final diagram of the second sentence.

 

These sentences are fairly simple and easier to chart. It gets more complicated and fun with more complex sentences (like complex or complex- compound sentences) and more challenging if we  further diagram the words by adjectives, prepositions, articles etc. What I showed earlier is a fairly simple version of it.

 

You may be surprise to know that I didn't do the above presentation to my son. In fact, I taught him another diagramming method.

 

If you google 'sentence diagram' you will see images like this:

 

Image source

 

And that was how I taught my son. This site gave the best and most detailed explanation on how to diagram sentences. I even picked up grammar terms like predictive nominative and predictive adjective, auxiliary modifiers etc - I never knew!

 

I only started to give my son  a quick15 minutes lesson on this. I don't plan for him to be an expert in this but I do want him to be familiar with this as I am slowly recognizing how it can be useful in helping the write sort out his ideas in order as Susan Wise Bauer has said. It does help the writer to structure the sentences properly.

 

Phew, this is probably my longest ever. But I sure had a lot of fun reading; learning and sharing about this!

Writing with skill

I have been trying to brush up Sonshine's writing skills but I am ill-equipped to teach him. So I have been buying local assessments books in bid to build up his writing ability but alas none work. It's not structured enough for me and him; I need a clear, systematic, step by step methodology in order to teach him. After some online search, I settled on a curriculum, popular among the American homeschooling community. 

Presenting: Writing with skill by Susan Wise Bauer. 

 

Photo credit

This is a preceding series after Writing with Ease . I have written about it before (er, I am too lazy to search for the post). 

Writing is a complex task requiring the young student to use multiple skills simultaneously. He needs to have an idea, translate the idea into words, put the words in writing. When writing he needs to note his grammar, spelling, vocabulary, punctuations and take care that he writes  neatly, all these at once. 

 

Typically, the child is thrown into the daunting task and is expected to juggle all these skills simultaneously. Susan Wise suggests to break down each skill so that the student can concentrate on sharpening one skill at a time.  For instance, to help the child translate a thought or story into words, Susan Wise recommends narration without any writing. The child reads a passage and summarises verbally what he just read without having to write it down. The instructor will pen it down for him as he narrates so that he can see his thoughts in writing (yet not be constrained by the rules of writing). Here the child need not worry about writing rules, coordinating his eyes-hands and thoughts at the same time. All he needs is to focus in finding words for his ideas. And so on.

 

There are many aspects of Writing with Skill. For now, I am only applying 3 steps, Dictation, Summary and Thesaurus. I tweak the methodology such that it's applicable to our local syllabus. For a start,   I chose to use our local composition guide books as the text rather than the recommended novels.

I found the dictation exercise very useful. As I read a particular sentence, Sonshine has to register the words in his memory first before writing them down. He will recite the sentences back to me before putting it down on paper. By memorizing and reciting, I find it forces him to learn how to construct proper sentences or describe a situation he would otherwise not know how to. Also, it helps him pick up new vocabulary.

His pronunciation needs improvement that's why I make Sonshine read aloud first. I would correct him as he reads along. 

After he reads the passage, he would start to write a summary in  3-5 sentences. Summary helps him to study how others write and organise their thoughts. It also forces him to learn to extract out the key ideas of the story and learn that the other information in the story are details that supports the key ideas. This way, hopefully he gets the idea how to write. 

Lastly, Thesaurus. I take out a sentence and underline key words. He has to look up the thesaurus and find another word to replace. It is not easy because the words listed in the thesaurus have different shade of meaning and not all have can be applied to the particular sentence. He has to decipher which words best fit into the sentence.

Although I found these steps very useful, some may find it too dry and boring. It really depends what kind of learners you have and what is your preference of teaching. These books are not available in the library for borrowing, I had to purchase them from Books depository and they are pretty expensive. I love the systematic approach and I have high hopes that it will benefit Sonshine, IF we keep this up consistently. I hope I can judging how tight our routine can be especially during school terms. 

Comprehension strategies

I'm working on comprehension with Sonshine. As I was doing so, I soon realised comprehension work ain't as straight forward as I thought. It requires a lot of strategies and skills that need to be taught to the children. I'm not talking about those literal comprehension questions but those that need inferring and seeking out clues throughout the passage. 

I always assumed as long as one can read-everything else will fall into place. How wrong was I. It's not always true, well not for my son at least. 

There are lots of tips on the internet on how to teach comprehension (I had to google as I had no clue). Just search for key words like 'how to teach comprehension' or 'comprehension strategies'. Not everything that is out there was relevant to me. I tweaked and added my own strategies as I worked with Sonshine. I'm going to share it here. But do note, I am by no means an expert. I am just a mother figuring her way to help her son.

1) Underline corresponding words

The passages are long for 7/8 year olds to remember every detail of the passage & they may not know where to look for the answers. Sometimes, the questions can help locate where the answers are. For instance 'Why was the donkey hurt?' I have Sonshine underline 'donkey hurt' and make him look for these corresponding words in the passage. Once he found these words, he is to read the surrounding sentences to get the answers. Many a times such questions are straight forward 'The donkey fell into the river and got hurt.' Sometimes the child is required to read the entire paragraph to find the answers. 

2) Identify literal versus inferring questions 

I taught Sonshine these two types of the questions. Literal questions are easy because you can literally copy the answers from the passage. I showed him inferring questions meant that he has to look for clues in the passage. 

To illustrate, I gave him the sentence 'Tommy went home and took medicine.' I asked him how did Tommy feel? Sonshine rightly pointed out it's because Tommy took medicine. I showed Sonshine that the sentence didn't say 'Tommy is sick' but we know he is because he 'took medicine'. I taught him this because sometimes I catch him scouring up and down the passage looking for the corresponding words from the questions in vain. He needed to be taught that literal questions meant that he had to find clues instead of the corresponding words.

This strategy seem to help Sonshine unlock the mystery of comprehension! After I showed him what inferring questions are, he suddenly tackled comprehension like a pro!

3) Identify the cause and effect

These are usually the 'why' questions. I noticed Sonshine assumed that the 'effect' sentences are always after the 'cause'. For instance 'Mary is going to the beach' (cause). 'She is happy' (effect). But sometimes it's the other way around. 'Mary is happy' (effect). 'She is going to the beach' (cause). In comprehension passages, it's not always so straight forward. The cause and effect statements are not always one after the other. Sonshine usually gets drown by all the words an details in the passages. So i had to teach him to identify which is the cause and effect. 

4) Try to decode a new word

It's probable that the student will stumble upon a word he never seen. I try to teach Sonshine to always first ask himself if that word is a noun (is it a person, place or thing?), verb or an adjective. From there, look around the passage to look for clues that tell you more about the word. 

5) Demonstrate reading skills

I learnt that a reader can be a good reader or a poor reader. I always thought the latter meant that the child cannot decode the words. But that's not right. A poor reader is one who reads without properly understanding the story. Sonshine isn't a detail person. He gets the gist of the story but overlooks all the nitty gritty details. Fortunately, I still have the habit of reading aloud to him. As I read to him, I demonstrate how he should be reading 

a) Read again

 

When I come across sentences that I think he doesn't understand. I show him that he can always stop and go back and read again. This time read slowly and look for clues to understand better or check if he had miss something out earlier. 

b) Ask questions aloud

 

Sometimes a sentence doesn't make any sense. I usually stop and ask aloud 'something is strange here! What is it?' Together, Sonshine & I will identify what is so strange about it and why. 

c) Identify with the character.

 

At some point, I would stop and ask Sonshine how he would feel if he's the character or reminded him that he had a similar experience before. Being able to identify with the character is important because sometimes in comprehension, the students are required to use their own personal knowledge and experiences to answer a question. It also helps them in making predictions. That's why I want Sonshine to pick up the habit of putting himself in the character's shoes. This would help him to enjoy the story and better understand the passage.

 

6) Build vocabulary

 

Looking back, I realised I never work on English with Sonshine, very rarely. I was focused alot more on Math and Chinese. I always assumed that since we speak English at home & he reads, he would be a natural in the subject. Wrong. I know a lot of parents claim that reading is enough to build a strong foundation in English. I beg to differ. Reading helps, yes, but it is only ONE of the ways to improve English. Some kids are a naturalist in the subject so reading books alone will help them. But some kids are just not very good in the language. Some kids would read but not notice things like spelling, grammar, vocabulary & especially punctuations- they read purely for the storyline. Sonshine is one of them. The only thing he picks up during his read is spelling, everything else, he overlooks. For kids like him, they need a structured, consientious lesson to teach them- ON TOP of their leisure reading.

 

I also thought by reading his vocabulary would improve. Well yes and no. He did pick up words but Sonshine tends to 'escape' when he sees words he doesn't know. He would not attempt to know the meaning of the word, not even make a wild guess. Only this year, I learnt that I had to consciously make him learn new words everyday- no matter how simple the word is. Why is vocabulary so important? The comprehension passages will get harder and use 'bigger' words as they progess up each level. If they don't have sufficient words in their vocabulary bank, they will have difficulty in understanding the passage. Morover, Singapore comprehension has the habit of asking 'What does XX mean?' or 'What is another word for XX?'. If the student has limited vocabulary, he will literally be throwing 2 marks away for his English paper.

Wow, this primary school education is a whole new era to me! Lots of 'work' to be done ahead! *Sweat*

 

Ice cream Vocab

Recently, I discovered that Sonshine's vocabulary is rather limited. The other day, I was shocked to my bones when he told me he didn't know what 'capture' and 'relatives' means. *Slap head*

 

It sent me on a panic mode, to say the least.

 

So, I came up with a quick activity with him, hopefully we can do this on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. My goal is to build up his vocab quickly and in the shortest time possible.

 

The fortunate thing is he's got a fantastic memory; he is able to lock down a concept or word fairly quickly and retain it for good. That's why I came up with an activity to expose a number of words at one go because I am quite certain the words will stick deep into his head. For Sonshine, the activities/lessons cannot be too long winded. It has to go straight to the point (no introduction, no fanfare) & the lesson must be conducted clearly & accurately & speedily. So for this vocab activity, this is the best 'to the point' way I can think of...but for him I think it was alittle too long winded for him :P.

 

 

 

Anyway, I made these ice cream cut outs. On each of the cones, I wrote a word. Each cone has 3 scoops of ice cream and on each of them there is a word with similar meanings to one of the 'cone words'.

 

First, I jumbled them up and whilst trying to explain the game to Sonshine, he was already busy connecting the cones. I had to stop him and slow him down.

 

I let him joined the words he knows and for words that he didn't, I will make a sentence with that word and have him infer what it means and then join that word to the correct cone. For instance, I may say ' I ADMIRE her painting'  and he had to decide which of the 4 words closely describes 'Admire'.

 

I refused to spoon feed him with the answers and I want to make him use his God given brains! I think this helped to make the game more interesting for him too.

 

'Hey mom! Ice cream cones!'

 

After the first round, I mess up the words again. And this time, as he joined each word, he now had to make a sentence using that word to me. I do this to make sure he truly understands the meaning of the word and knows how to use them.

 

I hope to do this as often as possible!

 

 

Counting, reading & fruits

I taught Doll how to read number words from one to ten. Since she can also count and recognise words relating to some fruits, I decided to create the following work for her.

 

My objective is to 1) expose her to these words as much as possible  so that they are deeply rooted into her memory

 

2) help her see that when words join together they mean something

 

3) get her started on reading short phrases

 

4) practise her counting

 

 

 

I made her fruit picture cards, on each card there are a variety number of a particular fruit. She's to read the word cards and match to the correct picture card.

 

At first, I would lay out 3 picture cards at a time in order to avoid confusing her. But she tend to guess the words by looking at the picture cards. So I took away the picture cards and made her read aloud from the cards.

 

When she was comfortable reading each card, I whipped out all the picture cards at one go and have her match the word cards one by one. One thing I notice, she didn't need to count the number of fruits on each card, she could instantly tell which card has say 3 pears or 4 bananas. (Ok granted they are a small number)

Before you think she took this like a fish in the water, not really. I had to get her to do this activity repeatedly over a few weeks. She tend to confuse the word 'apples' with 'pears' although she can recognise 'pear' *shrug*. But with repetitiion, she eventually sorted out the two. :)

Week #10 for Sonshine

This is English/Mandarin week for sonshine. 

 

Other then the SKWD (now at the 25th lesson), he worked on a few pages from the following book.

 

 

I bought this book from Popular bookshop sometime back, like last year. I didn't quite start him earlier because i realised the standard was bit too high for him. I almost gave it away when recently, i discovered he's vocabulary has grown more- good enough for him to start this book.

 

There are several sections to this book- i am going to share a few.

 

 

看图写词

 

Look at the picture and write. I didn't make him write because some of the words he hadn't learn. (I tell you, as we progress into higher level of Mandarin it gets really tough- especially with the writing). So i made him tell me the appropriate words for each picture. I was very pleased that he had little problem.

 

 

This is akin to cloze passage. Read the sentence and select the correct words.

 

 

完成句子

 

Complete the sentence. Sonshine needed some guidance for the last two questions.

 

 

Choosing the write word. If you notice, the multiple choice answers given are very close to each other. One must be able to read, recognise and understand the meanings to do this.

 

 

Of course, Hanyu Pinyin.

 

I used to dislike this book because i thought it was too tough. Now i love it! I feel that this book really test the child's understanding and usage of mandarin. It is one thing to recognise the words, it is another thing to understand what is being read & knowing how to apply them. Though Sonshine didn't get everything right but i am happy enough that he was able to get most correct without my help. It reaffirms to me that he can read AND understand!

 

 

He also did one section from this book.

 

 

Another practice on the Effective Grammar book.

 

I have also embarked him on Writing with ease curriculum. This week he did 2 copywork and 2 comprehension passages. In the latter, i read out a short passage provided in the book and i asked questions set by the author. He was expected to answer in full sentences. This, as the author claim (i say 'claim' because i am not sure yet) that this lay the foundation in writing proper sentences.

 

WOW, it looked like he did alot didn't he? Well, truth is, we only spend 10-15 minutes max a day. I do not want to overwhelm him, so i usually give him 2-3 pages each day. I am careful with what i choose, making sure it is not too hard (because i don't want to discourage him) and not too easy for him.

 

This and that

Last 2 weeks, Sonshine worked on Math, English and mandarin.

 

I have started Kumon grade 3 book with sonshine. He worked on multiplication problem sums. I was particular about him getting the multiplicant and multiplier right. It was down right confusing for both of us but i had to insist that he gets it right because this is what the schools are expecting.

 

My attempt to help him understand which is the multiplicant and which is the multiplier. I drew pictures and group them. I taught him that say 3 groups of 2 meant that we have to multiply 3 by 2 i.e 3X2 not 2X3 (yes, i know, both give the same answer). The page was eventually scribbled by doll, who else?

 

I love this Grammar assesment book. I think it really test the child's grammar. The questions are in multiple choice format which works very well for sonshine since he hates to write. And the questions are not straight-forward, requires some thinking and full understanding of the grammatical rules. The questions work as a check for me to see how well he understood the grammatical rules.

 

We completed 2 more chapters of SWKD. I must say he is doing very well. I appreciate that it does not take him long to remember and recognise new words. Phew. I dread it when it comes to doll cause i suspect she is not quite like her brother in this department. -__-

 

He learn to write two new words, one of which conincidently was a new word he learnt from SWKD book. Works well for me since it helps to reinforce his learning.

 

 

I wanted to inject more fun stuff  in our home learning. So i am re-introducing continent work to him, something he is interested in. I am hoping as he work more on this puzzle, it will edge in his mind the locations of the countries in the continent.

 

I also made cards on European countries. On each card is a shape of a country on the continent. So far, he has learnt to recognise Italy, Germany, Denmark and Sweden just by looking at their country outline. We also revised the capitals of these countries which he has forgotten.

 

First week at homeschool@sg

Phew! We did quite a massive lot this week! Whoohoo!

 

I am trying to up our homeschool work since he's older & due for Primary school next year.

 

 

We finished on Singular & Plural nouns. I splashed lots of assessment exercises on him. :)

 

I created my own 'worksheet', wanted to make sure he entirely understood what he learnt.

 

Unlikely my smarty niece, i need to make sonshine commit to memory when it comes to spelling. But the good thing is, it doesn't take him long to remember. I cashed in on that and made him memorise the spelling of numbers from 1-19 in a shot.

 

We also did Chinese! I made a few card words based on his lessons from the enrichment school. I shuffled the words and made him form the phrases as i call them out. My purpose was first to get him to recognise the words and hear me say the words.

 

I made him read aloud the entire passage (he got from his enrichment school) until he could read fluently and remember the new words. I think the flashcard activity (above) helped him alot in remembering the new words. I even had him check a Chinese dictionary for words he didn't understand.

 

He did some writing practice, 4 new words! Well, actually he probably learnt them in school (that's why he kept telling me it was so easy!). :P

First Grammar lesson of 2013!

 

This holiday we did a great deal of nothing. Just nothing. We lazed around, played, meet people, had grands over for 2 weeks, and did more lazing. It was a holiday of nothing-ness. I almost thought i lost my mojo.

 

Somehow, we got our engine started on the very day sonshine started school. We started our first Homeschool lesson of the year with grammar lesson.

 

The topic was on singular and plural nouns.  

 

 

These are some of the visual aids i made to help sonshine learn faster & accurately. He learnt that with most words we add a 's' at the end to change them into plural forms. Otherwise words ending with 'ch', 'sh', 's', 'ss' and 'x' we have to add an 'es'. We will be continuing the lesson with other exceptional words like words ending with 'y', vowel before 'y' etc.

 

 

This was just a simple worksheet i whipped out to help him revise.

To be honest, i think he doesn't quite need this lesson. He has read widely enough to know instinctively the plural forms of most words. But i insist on going through this chapter because of my own experience. In terms of English language, i always go by instinct, what sounds right and what feels right. But i never took into heart the grammatical rules hence my grammar, actually my entire English language, is very poor & inconsistent. I want sonshine to know as many grammatical rules as possible. I believe it will help him somewhat, i hope?