Teaching Grammar and Mechanics

Teaching Grammar and Mechanics helps teachers significantly improve student writing and test scores through direct instruction and individualized practice. This comprehensive curriculum is efficiently designed to take just one hour of class time per week and is aligned with the new Common Core State Standards Language Strand (L.1, L.2). Get these essential resources in Teaching Grammar and Mechanics and become the best writing teacher in your school.

Diagnostic Grammar and Mechanics Assessments

*Comprehensive whole-class diagnostic grammar and mechanics assessments provide the data to help teachers differentiate instruction.

*A grammar and mechanics recording matrix makes assessment data entry simple and progress monitoring efficient.

Instructional Resources

Direct Instruction: A full year of 64 Sentence Lifting lessons, formatted for your SMART board or overhead/LCD projector. These interactive 15-minute lessons provide direct instruction in mechanics, spelling, and grammar skills. Lessons use mentor texts (student and literary examples), simple sentence diagramming, sentence combining, sentence manipulation, error analysis, sentence dictations, and 64 colorful GRAMMAR CARTOONS by illustrator David Rickert. (Two 15-Minute Sessions, Twice per Week, for 30 Minutes Total Class Time)

Differentiated Instruction: 72 targeted grammar and mechanics worksheets, corresponding to each skill tested in the diagnostic assessments. Each worksheet includes definitions, examples, writing hints, and guided practice to help students learn the skills they did not master on the diagnostic assessments. Upon completion of each worksheet, students self-correct, take a brief formative assessment, and mini-conference with the teacher. (Two 15-Minute Sessions, Twice per Week, for 30 Minutes Total Class Time)

Here is how teachers describe the Teaching Grammar and Mechanics curriculum:

Comprehensive
Everything students need to learn about grammar, usage, and mechanics is in this program: the parts of a sentence, the function of these parts (such as the parts of speech), the arrangement of words with the sentence, word choice, grammatical terminology and mechanics: capitalization, punctuation, conventional spelling rules. No other grammar textbook or workbook is needed to teach the Common Core State Standards (L.1, L.2).

Flexible
Each Sentence Lifting lesson provides both basic and advanced mechanics, spelling, and grammar skills. Teachers choose what to teach to their students, so the curriculum works well for upper elementary, middle, and high school students. Special education students and English-language learners thrive with the individualized worksheets.

User-friendly
Minimal teacher prep design with simple and clear procedures and instructional activities, suitable for the novice English teacher with little background in grammar as well as for the veteran English teacher. Tips and writing hints for the grammatically-challenged teacher are provided in the scripted lessons, as are all the answers.

Balanced and Research-based
The curriculum helps teachers teach grammar and mechanics skills and rules in the context of authentic writing, not in drill and kill isolation.

Effective
Unlike other grammar opener programs, students retain the grammar and mechanics instruction and apply these skills in their own writing.

The Teaching Grammar and Mechanics curriculum pairs with Essay Strategies, by the same author, to form seamless writing instruction.

No other grammar and mechanics curriculum matches the comprehensive resources of Teaching Grammar and Mechanics. 384 pages