Is grammar taught by The Spalding Method?
A. First-grade students are taught the concept of nouns and verbs after they have written Sections A-G of the Ayres words. The teacher uses words from Sections A-G to illustrate sentence structure on the board. All parts of speech are introduced by using Ayres words. As students move through the Ayres list, they learn to write simple, compound and complex sentences. Q. Is sentence diagramming consistent with The Spalding Method? A. In general I see no conflict between teaching Spalding, a total language arts approach, and diagramming sentences, as long as diagramming is used only as a tool to achieve the goal of accomplished writing of quality sentences, paragraphs, and passages. Diagramming, a multisensory activity, makes the structure of language more concrete by providing a visual picture of the relationship among parts of speech. It can be beneficial when used as a first step to enhance students’ understanding of increasingly more difficult sentence structure. A diagram of a simple
