Hey, Mom, are your beginning readers frustrated when it comes to writing and punctuating simple sentences? I know mine have been. For years I searched high and low for a grammar program that would help my children write well from the very beginning of literacy.
Then I discovered New Language Exercises for Primary Schools by C. C. Long (I refer to this as “Long’s Language”). I actually wrote about my discovery and how to use it in this post about a year ago.
Well, I have been using this old book with my children with great success, but arranging the lessons in our composition books was a bit time-consuming, especially for the littler ones. There was also the problem of the copperplate script used, and some of the language was a bit archaic.
Then the idea struck me; why not take the lessons and rework them into a printable, with specific places to write the sentences, etc. I knew it would be greatly helpful, both to myself and others, but I just didn’t have the time (or so I thought).
Funny how necessity can help you find the “extra” time you need, isn’t it? In this season of our lives I’ve needed our homeschooling to be even more automated, so I took it upon myself to take Long’s Language and reformat it for our children.
After prayer (of course) I was given an amazing way to simplify the whole process of putting the lessons into a format that is both simple for little children and easy to use for moms. It has taken me quite a few hours to formulate the first two levels, but I believe the end result is marvelous and will save me and my children beaucoup time (and frustration) in the long run.
Eventually, I hope to be offering these levels (one, two, three, and four) as physical books (along with The Lesson Book, levels one, two, three, four, and five), but until then I just couldn’t keep them to myself!
Soooooo…
Today I am offering levels one and two FREE for you to download and print to use with your children!
Here are some sneak peaks into the interiors:
I staggered the pages so they could be easily printed and hole-punched and placed into a three-ring binder, or you could hand one page out at a time if that is easier for you.
I hope you enjoy these, and I hope they bear much fruit for you and your children!
Download here:
UPDATE!!!!
You can find the updated versions of levels one and two, as well as versions three and four, by clicking the graphic below:
YOU.are.amazing!! I love this curriculum and also wished it had spaces to fill in & such. Why didn’t I think to do this? So awesome!! Thank you!!
Your feedback makes me so happy, Amy. I love blessing dear moms like you!
I love you blessing us too 😉
Thank you for your generosity! I am using the Lesson Book Four with my 14 Yodd. She is my last non adult. The pages provide loose structure, perfect for us! She has been bringing her own cooywork passages in place of MacGuffey. I had not planned this but it had brought depth to her reading and dictation that she has chosen.
Will love the grammar 4 when available.
You are so welcome, Sharyn. I will try and put those up as soon as I can. Make sure and spread the news so others can take advantage of these resources.
Thank you so much for putting this together. My wife really like using the New Language Excersices.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I’m so glad your wife was blessed by Gentle Grammar 🙂
Thank you! I am at the end of my rope with 9yo. Hoping this will be what he needs. His 10yo & 8yo sisters do well with whatever I put in front of them but he is not thriving. Prayed today for God to show me what to do and ordered the Mcguffey readers. I came here and saw this. Thank you! ♡♡
You are welcome, Annie. I have found prayer to be the best place to turn in such cases 🙂
I’m printing these to begin using on Monday with my new Lesson books!!! Thanks Sherry!
Hallelujah, jumping for joy here 🙂
Thank you. These sound really good. I have a program to help children become better writers. I’ll use this to help them as well. God bless.
I hope they are a blessing to you, Jann.
Thank you so much for sharing these with us! I know they must have been a lot of work for you. What a blessing you are to your children – and to us. I am printing these out right now and so look forward to using them.
You are so welcome, Lisa. I needed to create these for my little girls anyways, and once I developed a system it didn’t seem that bad (I did it while watching movies with the family). We’ve been using them and they make everything so easy!
Sherri
I simply love this. Thank you. I have a question, do the books go along with something else? I noticed in level 2 page 53 there are questions that seem to refer to a story. I think I may have missed something. Can you help me?
I’m so glad you are enjoying Gentle Grammar! I just checked out page 53 of level 2 and I believe you may be confused with the question, “What is the part on the ground?” which is actually asking the student to identify the sole of the shoe.
These lessons were originally coordinated with the revised McGuffey readers, but we’ve never had any problems using them out-of-sync or without the McGuffey’s (in other words, they are not dependent on the McGuffey’s).
I hope this answers your question.
I think you are right. I did misunderstand it. I truly love these. I have my kids using them and they love this. Thank you so much.
You are very welcome 🙂
Hi! I’m new to your site and while I wish I found it sooner I’m sooooo glad I found it at all. I’m still working through reading through some of your blogs about using McGuffey for an LA so forgive if it’s already been answered lol. Are the books coordinated to match whichever McGuffey reader the child is on? For example- if I have one kiddo working through the pictorial primer would it be best to wait to get to the first reader before beginning Gentle Grammar book 1?
Great question! Actually, the original books Gentle Grammar is based on were meant to be used along-side the revised McGuffey readers and do coordinate with the books somewhat. I personally don’t adhere to that, however, and tend to go with the level my child is actually at in their ability to write well. If you are using the Pictorial Primer (the brown books), the it would not coordinate, since those books were written 50 years prior.
Hope this clears things up a bit more.
Thank you so much for your generosity! Can’t wait to see the upper levels!
You are welcome! I’m sloooowwly getting the last few pages of the upper levels done…
You are such a gift! Thank you for this! I think you should make them into books and sell them with your others!! Strictly curious, do you intend to finish out the series?? (I feel greedy asking, but hope that it is seen as sincere interest and gratitude as I plan out my little girl’s 3rd year lessons!!)
Whoops! I saw in the comments – it is a work in progress… THANK YOU!
You are so welcome, Kimberly. Hopefully we’ll have all the free downloads and printed books available soon 🙂
Sherry,
Thank you sooooo much for these AMAZING resources to go along with “Long’s Language’s” courses! I am printing these for my 1st grader. They look FANTASTIC!!!
You had mentioned that you might also make some Gentle Grammer pages for Levels 3 and 4 at some point? Just inquiring if you were still be planning to do that?
I have a 3rd grader and was hoping to have some supplemental sheets for her as well. 🙂
Thank you so much, this is a huge blessing!!!
I’m so glad you were blessed! We are almost finished with the third and fourth levels, hope to have them available, both for free and in print, soon!
Yay! Greatly looking forward to the next levels…
Cannot thank you enough for all your hard work in creating these pages and for making it available to us!!!
God Bless!!!!!!!
You are so very, very welcome, Angela. I have been trying and trying to get the other two levels online, and we actually have put all of them in printed form, we just haven’t had the time to finalize the proofs for Amazon. Pray that we get the time soon!
These are beautiful! You did a wonderful job with them. They are truly a treasured find.
I’m so glad you like them 🙂
Thank you!
My pleasure, Jennifer. I’ll be putting up links to the last two levels as well as the physical books very soon 🙂
Thank you so much for these! I was looking for a gentler approach to getting my daughter to start writing again this year and these will be just the thing! I really appreciate the time you took to make tham <3<3<3
No problem–I love blessing other moms!
These beautiful lessons are exactly what I need for my younger children. I appreciate the time and effort that you have put into them and thank you for allowing us to have them!
You are very welcome, it is my pleasure 🙂
hello, love your language curriculum thank you so much. I have a question – is there a spelling mistake on Q53 of level 2? It asks the child who makes the ‘shores’? Should it be ‘shoes’. Thanks
Could be! I’ll have to check into that…Thank you 🙂
My daughter (11) is using your books for LA and is in Book 4 she has a few questions that I couldn’t answer.
” On page 19 What words do you use to fill the blanks in?
On page 31 What are the lines for on the bottom of the page?
How is the dictation pages suppose to be done? Should I study them, look over, or memorize including where the punctuation is? Should it take more then one day, ie: one day study/memorize and then day two mom dictated it to me? ”
Thank you for your time.
Siobhan and Lea
Great questions, Siobhan! For page 19: Whatever words make sense in the sentence. As for page 31: Lesson 16 is for information only, the lines are there just because they were in the template I was using–sorry for the confusion :). As for the dictation, I have added pages in the back with the dictation exercises that you can cut out and use to read aloud. The suggestion is to take time to go over each part of the dictation exercise before reading it to the child and having him write it down. If my child gets stuck, I am always happy to help. This isn’t like classroom schooling where kids are trying to get away with everything they can. My children want to do their best automatically, so I don’t mind correcting their spelling and punctuation as we go along. Hope this helps.
I have the same question as Siobhan in reference to the dictation exercise. Do you cover up the dictation so the child can’t read it or are they allowed to reference it while you’re dictating it to them?
I hope the reply I left for Siobhan helps. I do recommend covering up the page before beginning.
Sherry, that’s exactly what I needed to know! Can’t wait to start your grammar books! Your “lesson books” are already staples in our house and I can’t wait to add gentle grammar in when it gets here on Monday!
We just finished gentle grammar level one and are moving on to level 2! This has been such a blessing in our life! Thank you!
You are so welcome–it makes me so happy to hear someone is benefiting from these books 🙂
Thank you so much for the wonderful books.
You are so welcome 🙂
Thanks so much for the free downloads. Are these for the original or revised McGuffey’s. Also are your workbooks on amazon the same as the pdf? Which McGuffey do you use for the ones you sell on Amazon?
Actually, Gentle Grammar is a stand-alone grammar program. They roughly follow the second original reader, and the second through third revised readers. I hope this answers your questions.
I love your vlogs and the resources you have. My 12 year is using level 4 now do you have any recommendations for what to use next?
After this you could try Harvey’s Grammar, which delves more deeply into the subject, but is still pretty gentle to use (and free online). Hope this helps!
Thank you! Where can I purchase level 5?
It is available from Amazon–here is the link: The Lesson Book Level 5
I am sooo excited to have found this resource! I love gentle grammar and this seems to be relaxed but also thorough and age appropriate. I am curious how often you use this per week? Do you use it daily and finish it quickly or just do one-two lessons a week and stretch it through the year? Thanks!
I think there is enough here to do almost daily, since together the books cover more than a few years. Just try it out and see how much your child can handle, then adjust accordingly 🙂
Hi! I am looking at using these for my son starting next year. How many lessons are there/how many days per week do you recommend for a normal 180 day school year?
It is not meant to be a full-blown spelling program, so it shouldn’t take an entire year. I would use it as a jump-starter, actually, and then continue with something like the McGuffey’s speller if you think it is necessary, although we have tended to use our McGuffey’s readers and the Charlotte Mason method the rest of the way so that spelling comes more naturally. Hope this helps!
Is there an answer key with this?
I have found that these exercises are so basic they do not need an answer key 🙂
Sorry, no. But the questions have many different answers and are so basic that you will not need an answer key 🙂