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!

Comparing readers

I have five sets of purchased readers and one set of readers that Doll brings home from school. Unfortunately for my pockets, I don't use them all. I discovered some were not suitable for teaching Doll to read while some others were right up my alley. Here is my comparison of the readers I have at home. (All of my readers are purchased from Popular bookshop)

 

 

This set of readers focuses on sight words.

 

 

 

As you can see, at the top right corner of each booklet, there is an indication of which sight words a book is emphasizing.

 

 

The other reader set I own is the 'First Little Readers'. Its target audience is for beginning readers. I suppose that means those who already have some foundation in reading.

 

 

A peep inside one of the books.

 

These two sets are very similar. Most of the words are repeated throughout the books. I bought these readers as I had thought it would be a good start to teach Doll new words.

 

Now, here is why I have stopped using these two sets for Doll. First, I felt that these readers are not suitable for beginning readers. The words used are too sophisticated (for the lack of a better word) for young readers. I was expecting more like 'This is a ball, this is a doll' type of sentences. But alas it isn't (see picture above). This means, the child must already know quite a good number of words before embarking these readers. Or otherwise, it means the teacher has to spend a lot of time drilling on one book before she can move on to the next. It can be quite tedious.

 

 

I found that the books introduce too many new words in a particular book. Although the sentences structure is more or less the same, but the new words only appear once throughout the book. For instance the above picture, the sentence structure on the two pages are the same except for the words 'dragon' and 'astronaut'. So these two words are newly introduced words but they only appear in those two pages.

 

I would not recommend it if you are teaching a very young reader to read. When I say young, I mean like he or she is just starting out. These readers are not suitable for these group of children. Constant drilling may be required and this may bore and tire the child.  I may use it for more mature readers to further increase their reading vocabulary. Or those who learns to read easily by sight, like my son.

 

 

For the same reasons, I do not like the readers Doll's school uses. I thought the introduction of new words were going at too fast a pace especially for children who is just learning to recognise words.

 

 

However, it has proven to be quite effective for Doll so far. Doll is learning to read from these readers, surprisingly. I credit it to the teachers who constantly read the same book to the kids for a term, day in day out. And even, extracting some words to teach the children and drilling in the words everyday.

 

Now that is my point, such readers require massive amount of work and time. For the teachers to do this in school is ok but for lazy parents like me, it is just too much work.

 

 

 

 

The other reader I own is Bob books. I used to scorn at these books when Sonshine was learning to read. I thought it was too simple, boring and too slow. Also because, he didn't learn to read by phonics more by sight words. But now that I have a different learner in Doll, I cannot help but think this set of reader is fantastic. In fact, it propelled her into reading.

 

I  highly recommend Bob books for children who are learning to read by phonics. These are especially suitable for those who are learning to blend CVC words. These books give very good opportunities for the child to practise blending and also give them the confidence in reading. When Doll realised she could read the entire book all by herself, it gave her massive confidence in reading. After this, Doll's reading went up by many notches.

 

 

Another set of readers I used to roll my eyeballs at is the Peter and Jane series. I had forgotten this was the same reader my teachers used in school to teach me to read. Because of Doll's learning style, I had re-discover the beauty of this series.

 

 

Why is this set of readers so popular? Unlike the first two readers I mentioned, Peter and Jane books start off with very simple words. Words that a child can easily relate to. The new words gradually appear and get repeated (like crazy) throughout the book.

 

I like that they restructure the sentences using the same words. This erases the possibility that the child is memorising. Let me explain. For the first three readers I mentioned, the sentence structure is the same throughout a book. When a child 'reads' it, like when Doll comes back and rattle off her school readers, it makes one wonder if the child is memorising the words (because it get repeated) or she can really read each and every word.

 

However, in Peter and Jane series, the structure changes but the words are the same. So it forces the child to really look at the words rather than going by the 'rhythm' (like reciting nursery rhymes).

 

I guess each readers have it strengths. My comparisons are solely based on Doll's learning ability. For her learning style (need repetition and lots of practise), she needs Bob books and Peter and Jane series are the best fit. However, the first three readers are excellent for children who read by sight and pick up reading easily, like my son. To find out which readers suit your child best, you got to know what kind of learner he or she is and then pick out the readers that is most suitable. Well, I had to do a lot of trial and error on that as one can see! But I am glad that I have finally found what works for Doll! Yay! 

 

 

'Wood' you read with me?

I am narrowing my learning with Doll to just reading and counting. I am slowly accepting that I have barely enough time nor energy to do anymore than that with her. Here's what I have been up to.

 

 

I absolutely love Daiso wooden blocks! This idea was birthed when I saw my good friend's post over at Playhood. I just had to make my own! I used these blocks to teach Doll phonics and reading. All I had to do was stick the labels on each block of wood and write down the letters.

 

This week we are learning the words within the 'ad' family.

 

First, I had her sound out the 'ad' word.

 

 

I took out the consonants and have her sound out the individual letters before combining it with the 'ad' blocks. We sound out the words together.

  

 

 Besides phonics, I am also teaching her to read by sight. While she is able to read simple sentences, but I want to speed it up.(I am surprise by some of the words she knows. Must have been picked up during our read aloud time together) So I purchased this series of readers from Popular book shop (even though I have tons at home already). I am using these books to work on her reading. I am pleased that she is able to read some books on her own. Now, we have to tackle the other books.

 

 

 

As usual, I always go for books with simple sentences with repetition.

 

 

I made labels for her to learn the new words. I must say she picked up the words pretty quickly. Must be her sensitive period now.

 

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. 

Come and Frog with me *croak*

I am very grateful to Doll's kindergarten teachers. They are doing a fantastic job teaching her how to read, write and study thematic topics. She's having a lot of fun learning at school too. That explains why I have been pretty laid back with the home teaching.

 

But recently I was suddenly inspired to make some frog theme activities for her.

 Bouts of inspirations like these does wonders!

 

 

Doll's teacher will go through the day of the week with her class everyday. To the point where, she can read almost all the days in words. I made this matching 'Days of the week' cards to help her reinforce her reading.

 

 

To make it interesting, I threw in the 'lily pads' into our sensory box. Doll makes the frog jump according to the day of the week from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday etc.

 

 

I bought this Safari Toob a long time back. So I took it out and have Doll find the matching poison dart frogs to the card.

 

 

I printed these free Frog Nomenclature cards from here. First I have her match the picture cards.

 

Later, she matches the word cards to the pictures. She can't recognise the words on the cards so she's expected to compare the spelling of each card and determine if they are the same. I would also read aloud each word card as she picks.

 

Learning parts of a frog. 

 

I managed to borrow two very interesting reads on frogs from the library.

 

As we flip through the pages, we try to spot some familiar looking frogs :).

 

 

Doll was taught writing alphabets and numbers in school. She's learning them very well and can write most letters and numbers independently. Still, I created these cards for her to practise her writing and hopefully, remember the spelling of the words :D.

 

 

Learning a simplified frog cycle. Matching the correct figurine to the right cards.

 

 

Since our last math learning, she now understands that 10+3= 13. I whipped this up just for her to practise and reinforce what she learnt. This time no visual aids, all done mentally and from recalling what she learnt the last time. 

 

 

If you need more ideas, there are lots more ideas on this theme over at Living Montessori Now here. Lots of free printable too!

 

Have a croaking good time!

 

 

 

Simply Animals

I took out a tub of our animal toys and conducted some simple activities with Doll.

 

 

I made a place mat depicting the sea, land and sky.

 

 

We randomly picked out some animal toys and sorted them according to where they can be found i.e. sea, land or sky.   

 

I printed out some animal prints and Doll matched the animal toys to the cards.

We sorted some animals according to the number of legs they had.

 

As always, making her read is my priority. This week she is learning sight words 'i' and 'am'. I made sure all the cards repeated these two sight words so that it gets drilled into her head. She read aloud the cards and matched it to respective animal toys.

 

I've been neglecting the mandarin bit. Just a little phrase for her to retain words that she has learnt. Also, to help her make sense the words that she learnt.

 

Another way of AB patterning. Instead of pictures, this time I used words. She had to read and find the corresponding colored animal.