My middle schooler is a total grammar nerd. I can’t imagine where she might have gotten that from…*cough* it was me *cough*.
I remember loving Language Arts in school. I was totally into learning parts of speech, creative writing, poetry, and all the things that make English great.
But by the time I got to diagramming sentences, I was being homeschooled. And my mom had no idea how to do it, so I never learned to do it. That was…a certain number of years ago now, but I always regretted never learning how to diagram sentences. It looked like it would have been fun.
So now that my daughter is at the age to learn how to diagram sentences, I was a little apprehensive about how to teach her. Which is why I was so thrilled to have a chance to review the wonderful online sentence diagramming program Learn with Diagrams!
See how this online grammar program makes it easy (and fun!) to learn how to diagram sentences!
Disclosure: I received access to this product in exchange for this post and I was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I was not required to write a positive review.
How Online Sentence Diagramming Works
Learn with Diagrams is a fully online grammar program. While it’s awesome for homeschoolers, it also works for afterschoolers or even public school families that want to give their kids a bit more practice in ELA.
Since the program is completely online, there’s no textbook (which saves storage space). And it’s a cinch to use!
We started off with Level 1, which is a nice introduction to how diagramming sentences can help kids learn grammar. It’s also a good, quick review of the parts of speech.
Each level of the program begins with a brief video that explains a set of grammatical concepts and how they are used in sentences. So kids are really getting a set of grammar lessons with coordinating grammar games.
Basically, when you diagram a sentence, you break up the words according to the part of speech to which they belong. When you diagram correctly, you show that you understand each word’s role in the sentence.
After the introductory video, which is short, kids get to try navigating the game through a guided level. This helps them learn to play the diagramming game correctly before the grammar lessons get too difficult.
The sentences begin at a very basic level: just nouns and verbs. As students progress, though, the sentences become a bit more complex.
Like so. So the program builds on itself, gradually increasing the parts of speech used in each sentence once students show they understand the previous lessons.
When kids complete a level successfully, they can unlock the next lesson. This is fabulous if you have a “skip-arounder” student who likes to just click all over the place. They can’t really do that in this program.
How to Use Online Sentence Diagramming to Teach Grammar
Since my middle schooler loves all things ELA, I didn’t have much trouble getting her to continue using Learn with Diagrams. But I was surprised at how much she learned in just a few lessons.
She has a nice grasp of grammar, because she reads a lot. But I also want to make sure that she learns the correct terminology for each part of speech she uses.
In the early lessons, she had no trouble at all. As the lessons progressed, though, she started to pay closer attention to the section videos.
After she watched the lesson video, she would start to practice diagramming the sentences based on that lesson.
The tips at the bottom of the screen were very helpful for remembering what each part of speech meant and how to use it. And the first few examples are guided, showing students where to place their newly introduced words.
She was moving on to prepositional phrases in no time!
I don’t want to make it sound like she got every question right. She didn’t. But when she incorrectly identified a part of speech, the online sentence diagramming game would let her know and she’d try again.
In some cases, we’d rewatch the lesson video to grasp exactly how each part of speech is used and to note some examples to watch for in the exercises.
She learned so much about grammar (that she didn’t know already) in just the first several lessons!
And I (finally) learned how to diagram sentences! Woohoo!
Visit Learn with Diagrams to start helping your child learn how to diagram sentences the fun way! Plus, score $10 off with the promo code Grammargame!
Learn more about Learn with Diagrams by following the company on social media!
And see even more tips for teaching ELA in your homeschool on my Homeschool Language Arts Ideas Pinterest board!
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