My eight year old recently began emerging as a reader. As she has picked up words and began to read and spell, I have been looking for the right program to use to introduce grammatical concepts to her. So, when I received an opportunity to try the second grade level of the Applied Grammar program with her, I thought it might be a good fit.

The Applied Grammar Second Grade begins by introducing simple parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, articles and adjectives. Over the course of thirty-one lessons, the skills taught build on each other until students are learning types of sentences, the sentences needed to create a paragraph and how to construct their own paragraphs. Applied Grammar suggests a pace of one lesson per week with plenty of time for review of concepts across the course of a week.

I received a kit that had both a teacher book and a consumable student book, as well as laminated mats for writing and erasing words on and colored writing folder inserts for students to make reference guides to the parts of speech and concepts learned in their notebooks. All that is needed in addition to this to complete the program are notebooks for each student (referred to in the teacher book as “think pads,”) and common homeschooling supplies such as, poster board, index cards, different colored crayons/colored pencils and dry erase markers. The lessons are scripted, so all that is required of the teacher is to read over the lesson script in advance and adjust to the needs of your individual students.

I really appreciated the ease of implementing this program. We already have both spelling and reading programs that we love for my daughter, so I was able to easily work this in as a once-a-week supplement to her other language arts pieces. Then, throughout the week, I used her other school subjects as springboards to use Applied Grammar techniques to reinforce nouns, verbs, subjects, and predicates with her. My daughter loved the color-coding system. It was easy for her to visualize how to create sentences with the laminated mats and to identify parts of speech by making them the correct color.

I did find it a little difficult to get acclimated to using all the pieces of the kit, so I wish that there had been an introduction in the teacher book that explained to me how we would use the laminated mats and writing folder inserts so that I would have had more confidence using them. It took me several readings of the lessons in the teacher’s manual before usage of the materials clicked. It would have also helped me to have a pacing guide in the teacher’s manual and some additional ideas for reviewing or using the concepts during the days between lessons. Many of the questions that I had were answered on Applied Grammar’s website. However, it would have been much more user-friendly for me to have had an introduction that explained more about these things.

Having said that, my daughter and I really enjoyed our experience with Applied Grammar. This was a simple way to add grammar into our week, and I felt like the slow pacing and the visual nature of the program aided her understanding of these specific grammatical concepts. I know that we will be continuing to use this program until we’ve completed this level, and that I will plan on using it again with my younger two children as we are introducing parts of speech.

-Product review by Rebecca Ray, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, March, 2016