Is Language Arts necessary if your child is a proficient reader by 5?

[queriquita]

do you think that 'language arts' as taught in elementary school is still a necessary subject?  my guess is no - that with so much exposure, the brain is automatically decoding the spelling and the grammar rules.  i'm imagining that lessons for spelling or for explaining things like f turns to v and you add es to make leaf and the like plural isn't necessary. i have no experience in this yet, as we're still getting through basic books, phonics and site words. so, what are your thoughts?  my ideal answer is NO so that this time could instead be dedicated to something more 'enriching'.  if it is necessary, would you say that it's not necessary for it to take up as much time as in a typical school?

any and all constructive thoughts are welcome, but i'm especially interested in reading replies from those whose children started reading very early and are reading past a 5th gr level by 5.  is that a realistic expectation if they start by two and are consistent in their practice?

[mom2bee]

NO! Reading to and with a child, with vocal emphasis, tone, pacing, etc... and talking about what you've read/are reading is going to make your kid just as grammatically capable. You can even stumble and say aloud, "Oh, since there's a comma that should've been; "...." and re-read the passage with better tone and inflection.

You can play different games verbally also to teach irregular verbs. I read about a cool one just today. I'll try and find it...
From a homeschooling forum:

{}I have a kid like that too.  Here is what I have done. It is an oral game we used to play in the car, while driving. She was younger, so the concept was more basic. You could adapt it to past participles, as I will probably need to do for her sooner or later.

Game: I Already Did That
Mom: I am going to the store
Dd: I already went to the store
Mom: Okay then, I'll swim at the pool
Dd: I swam at the pool yesterday

You could have your ds use a verb phrase: I have already been to the store.

Yes, it is basically drill and kill. It is oral though, and contains elements of boasting, which amuses that particular dd.  When she missed one, I would correct it, and then give her another chance after a few other words.


We also had to do this for plurals.

Mom: I have a goose on my farm
Dd: I have 3 geese on my farm

Once again, it presents the opportunity for boasting{}

[mom2bee]

I wouldn't say that NO langauge arts will be needed, but I wouldn't go through typical elementary workbooks/Lang. Arts approach.

I'd probably use an old College or Highschool grammar manual as a guide and come up with ways to formalize the concepts for my kids, or I'd just use freestuff from a website to quiz them until we hit on what they really didn't already know, which I would be expect something around a 4th gradish level, if you've really been actively teaching them good language skills and thinking out loud about what and why you do certain things when reading with them.

I teach every reading student about a Period and a sentence, about the 8 parts of speech, and sentence types as they learn to read. They aren't seperate and I wan't my students to read with inflection and comprehension. I try to read aloud to them in an animated manner, I run my hand along beneath text as we read together. Sometimes I stop them when they are reading to me and ask them a question as though I expect they know the answer, even if I know they dont. Then when they get stuck, I provide the answer and for some reason they retain this REALLY well, better than if they'd been taught explictly.

IE. When reading with a 5yo who was reading very flat/stiff/choppy even when they got to some dialogue,
I said: Hey, wait a minute, what does this symbol mean, remember?
He said: Umm..
I said: This symbol tells us someone is talking, remember?
He said: Oh yeah!

This student is now almost 7, he never forgets to shift his vocals when reading a bit of dialogue.

[DadDude]

Well, now that my son is 5.5 going on 6, I've been thinking about this question quite a lot.  H. often uses full, adult-sounding, long sentences, usually with excellent grammar. I don't think this is due merely to the fact that he was reading early, but generally to his copious early language training, including a lot of book-reading.  His intuitive grasp of English grammar is very good, though not 100% perfect. He is doing a lot of writing--daily for at least a half-hour, usually more, and he never complains about this. He calls himself "a writer." His spelling is excellent except for unusual, longer words, and his written grammar is usually impeccable. Even his punctuation is usually quite good. In short, for purposes of making him into a decent writer, I am finding that the mechanics are not nearly as difficult for him as getting him to do things like find the main point of a paragraph, repeat a story succinctly and with all the main points, etc. So we are working on that and are not working in any spelling or grammar book.  Still, writing every day is a form of language arts--it just isn't workbooks. Of course all children need huge amounts of practice writing, if they are to become decent writers.

But I do think that at some point we might start doing systematic (advanced) spelling and vocabulary work, and we'll go through a proper grammar book, not a yearly grammar drill but a more or less "complete," self-contained, rigorous grammar. The purpose for that is to make him a superb writer--in the same way that knowledge of logic is not really required, but certainly helps one to become a better thinker, especially in more advanced contexts. It's the same way with music theory. Your child may play by ear brilliantly, but it is a huge advantage to know theory.

To run with something mom2bee has said, sure, I have explained the punctuation marks, tried (not entirely successfully) to explain the parts of speech, and we have read Basher "Grammar" and "Punctuation" books. So it's not like he hasn't been exposed to grammar at all. It's just not...workbooks, daily drills, etc. He also learns something almost daily from my feedback on his writing.

[queriquita]

Thank you!  Your reply was exactly what I was hoping to get :-) That, and the signup sheet for me to get the kids enrolled with you ;-)   i know that there will come a day when the kids are reading and writing and articulating themselves much better than what i've relegated myself to doing in the last several years since i've stepped away from academia. but still, there IS this bit of anxiety that creeps in now and then at the thought of missing the boat with them, not giving them the full resources to successfully develop their potential in every way while they're young so that they're better equipped to develop their interests and DO something with whatever drives them when their older. *sigh* that's another post ;-) as for this one, i'm glad my instincts on this seem to be on track, at least as proven by H and pop :-). thanks, again!

come to think of it - i do have an offshoot question: does h alter his speech to match his audience yet?  in my experience, children start doing this from a very young age, most easily seen with multilingual children ... i'd expect dialects/speech patters are no different.  your comment about him speaking in long, adult sentences makes me wonder if this is because you are his audience, and if he maintains this with other 5 year olds, or if he adjusts in their presence.

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