The Early Grammar Stage


Student Characteristics:
Obviously excited about learning
Short attention span
Enjoys games, stories, songs, projects
Wants to touch, taste, listen, smell, and see
Imaginative and creative

Teaching Methods:
Guide discovering and finding things
Use many tactile items to illustrate point
Use body movements and short creative projects 
Sing, play games, chant, recite, color, draw, paint, build
Show and tell, drama, hear/read/tell stories
Field trips

The Late Grammar Stage

Student Characteristics:
Excited about new interesting facts
Easily memorizes
Likes to explain, figure out, and talk
Wants to relate own experiences to topic, or just to tell a story
Likes collections, organizing items
Likes chants, clever, repetitious word sounds 
Can assimilate another language well

Teaching Methods:
Lots of hands-on work, projects
Field trips, drama
Make collections, displays, and models
Integrate subjects through above means
Teach and assign research projects
Recitations, memorization
Drills, games, oral/written presentations

Student Characteristics:
Still excitable, but needs challenges
Judges, critiques, debates, criticizes
Likes to organize items, others
Shows off knowledge
Wants to know behind-the-scenes facts
Curious about why
Thinks, acts as though more knowledgeable than adults

Teaching Methods:
Time lines, charts, maps
Debates, persuasive reports
Drama, re-enactments, role-playing
Evaluate, critique with guidelines
Research projects, logic 
Oral/written presentations
Guest speakers, trips

Student Characteristics:
Concerned with present events, especially in own life
Interested in justice, fairness
Moving toward special interests, topics
Can take on responsibility, independent work
Desires to express feelings, own ideas
Generally idealistic

Teaching Methods:
Drama, oral presentations
Guide research in major areas with goal of synthesis of ideas
Many papers, speeches, debates
Give responsibilities 
In-depth field trips, even overnight
World and life view discussion/written papers, presentations and defense 

 
I discovered the classical model for education during my years as a home educator. Initially, I structured our home school experience in much the same way that I had structured my school classroom. But I quickly departed from the traditional school model which emphasized content area. Instead I focused on development of strong reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. In researching alternative educational models, I found the works of Dorothy Sayers, Susan Wise Bauer, and Charlotte Mason. The Sayers' essay was particularly meaningful as I found a codified expression of what I had been thinking. We were essentially practicing classical methods by emphasizing literacy and numeracy in the earliest stages of learning, then proceeding to logic and persuasion and the study of "content".

 - Brenda Porter, Second Grade Teacher