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This is a 30-page, self-published book with an answer key that fits into a unique category within the language arts curriculum. Accent Your Syllables is a brief worktext that first introduces the rules for syllabication and accents in English, then provides many exercises to practice applying those rules. The rules are printed in a blue ink and are easy to find on the pages. This course would be best suited for a student who is reading fluently, as the words are generally multi-syllable. Choosing words at random from the exercises provides this list: displease, exported, scripture, soapstone, Mediterranean, bacteria, and sedimentary. I plan to use this course over the period of a few weeks, rather than using it once a week throughout a school year. This course promises to be an excellent preparation for a student beginning the formal study of a foreign language as well as a course in a specific part of the study of English.

This is a really nifty little picture book that illustrates the importance of commas through the use of simple sentences with humorous illustrations contrasted with the same sentence (on the opposite side of the page) differently punctuated. The results are entertaining and quite educational.

Here is one example:

On the left-hand page is the sentence: "Slow, children crossing." The cartoon-like picture shows a crossing guard signalling for cars to stop while some school children cross the road.

On the right-hand page is the sentence: "Slow children crossing." The picture is of a bunch of children holding up traffic by very slowly walking across a bridge weighed down with a dog that won't move, a large pile of books, etc. A car impatiently honks while waiting for his turn to cross the bridge.

My children and I found this very engaging. My 9 year old immediately disappeared, book-in-hand, to pour over it again on her own.

A two-page appendix shows thumbnails of each picture along with their corresponding sentences and a brief explanation of the grammatical rule involved. Here are the explanations given for the examples used above:

Slow, children crossing.
The comma separates two independent phrases Slow and children crossing.

Slow children crossing.
Without the comma, slow is an adjective that modifies children.

There are thirteen sets of sentences in all.

This is simple, clearly presented, and in a pleasing font; examples are profuse, and exercises numerous. It includes a complete answer key, on different colored paper, in the back of the book. Ours was just a shrink-wrapped set of 3-hole-punched pages which we put into a simple binder. No fancy bindings, but an excellent presentation. The eight chapters include The Sentence: Subject and Verb, Three Articles, Adjectives, Direct Objects, Linking Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, and A Peek Ahead. The introductory paragraph sums up the book succinctly: "Usually, we teach diagramming very gradually and even spread it over several years because there are so many details to learn. The trouble is, diagramming is a sort of language, though only a written language, and until you can use it for everyday thinking, you can't get used to it...Perhaps grammar could be taught a lot earlier and faster if it were made simple and visual." That is what the author has done...simply and visually.

Update:The second edition (2002) contains 71 pages plus a 38 page answer key. The binding is now a "perfect bound" softcover binding. The content is essentially the same.

I was not taught to diagram sentences as part of my education, so I first viewed such diagrams as a curiosity; however, I have gradually come to appreciate their value as a tool for helping my children understand how the works and ideas in a sentence are related. I have, for example, diagrammed Latin sentences for them to help them understand the structure and grammar of that language.

The First Whole Book of Diagrams is a sort of reader of diagrams, organized by complexity. The first seven chapters overlap with the Elementary Diagramming Worktext in covering basic diagramming, while the next eight present more complex topics such as coordinate conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, imperatives, interjections, direct address, subordinate clauses, verbals, intransitive verbs, and apposition. There follows a teacher's manual, and finally two chapters of complex diagrams of actual prose and verse selections.

We use the First Whole Book of Diagrams for examples, as a source of dictated sentences for diagramming, and as a reference, with the Elementary Diagramming Worktext as our basic text. However, the teacher's manual in the First Whole Book lays out a simple and clear method for teaching grammar through diagramming, independently of the elementary worktext. Mrs. Daly points out that it is vital to teach the right questions to ask in order to determine the function of words in a sentence, since rules like: "A noun is a person, place, or thing," fail with alarming regularity even in simple sentences. This is the approach she takes in the teacher's manual.

The First Whole Book of Diagrams is an extensive resource of diagrams, but it is also fun to read. My oldest two children have enjoyed reading many of the diagrams and puzzling them out. The diagrams are funny, fun, sometimes inspiring, always interesting.

This series of six books introduces young children to concepts of grammar through very entertaining and sometimes humorous poetry and extremely colorful pictures. The titles are: Kites Sail High: A Book About Verbs, Behind the Mask: A Book About Prepositions,A Cache of Jewels and Other Collective Nouns, Merry-Go-Round: A Book About Nouns, Many Luscious Lollipops: A Book About Adjectives and Up, Up, and Away: A Book About Adverbs. Within the context of a fast-moving collection of widely-varying and very colorful illustrations, these poems explain, list and give examples of each of the parts of speech. For example, in the book Behind the Mask, you'll find the following sentences (emphasis is the same here as it is in the text) " Of PREPOSITIONS have no fear. They help to make directions clear. Along the northern shore bear east... beyond this green, reptilian beast... past its hungry, gaping mouth... veer directly... to the south, toward a place where mermaids flock upon, beside and near a rock." These particular sentences are spread out over six pages which include pictures of an antique-looking map illustrated with ships, a treasure chest, a Tritan, etc., a large pictures of a green serpent and a page full of mermaids. My children have really enjoyed these books and I have to admit that they are a decent refresher course for moms as well.