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I'm doing Beyond this year with my 7 year old ds. He is in second grade, and we are doing the Beyond grammar as well as Primary Language lessons two days a week. I plan to do Bigger with him next year and was wondering if he should do the 2nd or 3rd grade rod and staff. I'm not familiar with rod and staff, so I do not know how hard it is. I'm just curious because we go to thrifts stores a lot and if I come across it I might pick one of them up early. I actually saw the 4th grade one not long ago.

Bigger....starts with level 2 scheduled in the guide. I will be starting my son with that next year when we start...he'll be 8 next June and starting 3rd grade. The only grammar he will have had by then is what he will learn in Beyond...this year. I'm not familiar with PLL so I don't know how that compares to level 2 of R&S. Hopefully you can find a book to look through to help you decide if you want to get 2 or 3. I know R&S is a little more rigorous than some other programs...my ds 12 is in level 5 and dd 10 is just about to finish level 3, and those seem to be right at their levels. We love R&S so I would definitely recommend using it....hopefully someone can come along to tell you more. Diagraming is introduced in level 3, and here are a few other things from the Table of Contents of each:

Level 2

Unit 1

Learning About Sentences

Unit 2

Basic Building Blocks of Our Language

Unit 3

Pronouns: Another Building Block of English

Unit 4

Meeting More Building Blocks of English

Unit 5

Using Our Language

Unit 6

Building Our Vocabulary
Dictionary




Level 3

Unit 1

Using the Dictionary
Telling Sentences
The two sentence parts
Asking sentences
Capitalization and Punctuation in Name and Initials
Using Apostrophes
Checking Our Spelling

Unit 2

Nouns
Proper Nouns
Plural Nouns
Choosing the Correct Pronoun
Using Commas With Nouns and Pronouns


Unit 3

Action Verbs
Verbs that tell about the past
The Verb Be
Helping Verbs
Diagraming Nouns After Action Verbs
Meeting the Paragraph
The Topic of a Paragraph

Unit 4

Words That Tell What Kind of
Using Adjectives Correctly
More About Adverbs
The No Words
Writing A Story From Pictures
Using Words to Make Pictures
Sharing An Experience

Unit 5

Looking at the Dictionary Again
Homonyms
Synonyms and Antonyms
Describing a THing
Describing a Person
Making Introductions
Using the Telephone
The Parts and Form of a Friendly Letter
A Thank-you Letter
Rhymes in Poetry
Writing a Poem

Hope that helps some.

inHistiming was so thoughtful to type all of that out, and I know that will help as you make your decision. Personally, I'd want to do R & S English 2 before 3, as it gives an excellent foundation before beginning diagramming in 3. HOD has a goal for dc to complete R & S English 6 by the end of Grade 8, as R & S English 7 and 8 are high school credit worthy. Because grammar is taught alongside writing instruction within R & S, I'd not want to get to the upper levels of R & S too early. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

I'm with My3sons... Everything I have heard says Rod and staff gets tough fairly early. Stick with the level 2 for a7 year old.

I was asking for next year, and he will be 8 then. I will probably just get RS 2, but I was just wondering if it would be too easy after primary language lessons.

I did primary language lesson last year with dd2 and were doing rod and staff 2 this year. I rather like the fact that she is having lots of early success in grammar. AS she looks forward to that part of school. I'd rather she loved it than hated it. But english is a second language for her so I'm quiet happy taking it more slowly.

you can always see how he does and if its not working drop him back down.