How to Teach Grammar at Home

Part of my ‘How to Teach English at Home’ series for homeschooling parents. 

Introduction

When it comes to teaching grammar, parents can often feel intimidated. Perhaps you have personal negative memories of doing pages of grammar work when you were at school, or maybe you are worried about not being able to clearly explain the difference between a conjunction and a preposition.

The good news is that teaching grammar at home is entirely possible and you don’t need to be a grammar whizz. Even as an experienced and qualified teacher, I’d be lying if I said I never had to look up and revise tricky grammar before teaching it to a class or to my own children at home!

One of the great things about homeschooling is that you know where your child is in terms of their English learning as a whole, and this knowledge will help you to develop their grammar skills naturally and in context with other parts of their language development.

Learning grammar should always be seen as a way to support and enhance communication, not as separate lessons that you have to slog through in isolation, trying to understand all the alien terminology. 

What Is Grammar?

Grammar is how we make words work together to make meaning. Grammar is present in all areas of language: speaking, reading and writing. It helps us to communicate clearly.

The positive thing is that all children will already have lots of grammar acquired naturally through speaking and listening, even before they learn specific grammatical terms.

Think about a young child who says:

"I goed to the park."

They have actually got quite a lot right! They understand that the verb needs to change to show that something happened in the past. They just haven't yet learnt that go is an irregular verb and changes to went, rather than goed.

So grammar isn't something you are starting from scratch with your child. You are building on language they are already using.

As children get older, they gradually learn to recognise and explain the grammatical choices they are already making. They learn that go and went are verbs, for example, and they learn how different parts of a sentence work together.

This is an important distinction. Knowing the name of a grammatical feature and being able to use it correctly are not quite the same thing.

Do Children Need Formal Grammar Lessons?

This is one of those questions where the answer is: it depends!

A four-year-old does not need to sit down for a formal lesson on subordinate clauses. In fact, they are much more likely to develop their language by listening to stories, talking to you and playing with language.

As children get older, however, there is definitely a place for more explicit grammar teaching. The key is to introduce it at the right time and in a way that connects to what your child is actually doing with language.

Younger children

For younger children, grammar can be developed through:

• reading together

• conversations

• storytelling

• songs and rhymes

• phonics and early reading

• playing with words

• writing simple sentences

You don't necessarily need to call this "grammar".

When your child tells you a story, they are practising sentence structure. When they listen to you read a story, they are hearing how sentences are constructed. When they begin writing, they are experimenting with the grammar they have heard.

Older children

As children get older, you can start to introduce more formal grammar teaching, including:

• grammatical terminology

• sentence construction

• different types of sentences

• punctuation

• verb tenses

• conjunctions and clauses

• editing and correcting writing

The important thing is that these things shouldn't become completely separate from the rest of your child's English learning.

If you are teaching your child about adjectives, for example, look for interesting adjectives in the book you are reading. Then encourage your child to use some in their own writing.

Grammar makes much more sense when children can see why they are learning it and what it helps them to do.

The Best Order to Teach Grammar

If you are wondering where to start with grammar at home, I would actually start by looking at language as a whole rather than opening a grammar workbook.

There is a natural progression which looks something like this:

1. Listening

Children hear good examples of language every day.

This is one reason reading aloud is so valuable. Even when your child can read independently, hearing stories read aloud exposes them to vocabulary and sentence structures that they might not yet use themselves.

2. Speaking

Children then use language themselves.

Conversations, storytelling, asking questions, explaining things and simply chatting while you are going about your day all give children opportunities to practise grammar.

And yes, this includes those very long stories your child tells you about something that happened three days ago which somehow involves a dinosaur, or when they want to give you a very detailed account of all the Legendary-type Pokémons that live in the region of Kanto (I speak from experience here!). 

Check out my article all about teaching speaking and listening at home: How to Develop Speaking & Listening Skills at Home

3. Reading

Reading gives children even more examples of how language works.

You can start noticing interesting sentences together. You don't need to stop every few pages and turn reading time into a grammar lesson. Sometimes simply saying, "That's an interesting way of saying that," is enough.

Check out my articles all about teaching reading and phonics at home: How to Teach Reading at Home, How to Teach Phonics at Home

4. Writing

The next step - writing - gives children the opportunity to experiment with the grammar they have been hearing and reading.

At first, this might be very simple. As their writing develops, you can begin to look more closely at sentence structure, punctuation, word choices and grammatical accuracy.

Check out my article all about teaching writing at home: How to Teach Writing at Home

5. Explicit teaching

Finally, you can introduce the names and rules that help children understand what they are doing.

Once a child already understands the idea behind something, the terminology becomes much easier to learn.

This is why I wouldn't worry too much about whether your child can tell you what a subordinating conjunction is if they are already using one correctly in their writing.

Although the terminology is useful, it isn't the end goal.

The Grammar Skills Children Should Learn

The exact grammar your child needs to learn will depend on their age and the curriculum you are following, but it can help to think of grammar as something that develops over time.

Here is a very general progression:

This isn't intended to be a strict checklist. You don't need to work through these in exactly this order, and children will often be using a grammatical structure before they can explain it.

Think of it as a general progression rather than a list you need to tick off as quickly as possible.

How to Teach Grammar Naturally

This is where I think homeschooling can have a real advantage.

You don't necessarily need to create a separate grammar lesson every time you want to teach something. Grammar is everywhere in your child's English learning.

Read together every day

Reading is one of the easiest ways to expose your child to good grammar. As you read, you can occasionally draw attention to interesting sentences or words.

"Look at that sentence. Can you see why the author used enormous instead of just big?"

"That's an unusual way to start a sentence."

"Can you find all the verbs in this paragraph?"

You don't need to do this constantly. In fact, please don't! Most of the time, just enjoy the book.

Talk about language

Children are surrounded by spoken language all day, so make the most of it. You might notice an interesting word while you are cooking, walking somewhere or listening to your child tell you a story.

You could ask:

"Can you think of another word that means the same thing?"

"What would happen if we changed that sentence?"

"Can you make that sentence more exciting?"

"Which word tells us how he did it?"

These little conversations can be surprisingly useful.

Model good grammar

You don't have to correct every mistake your child makes. Instead, you can often model the correct version naturally.

Child: "He goed to the shop."

You: "Yes, he went to the shop. What did he buy?"

You've given them the correct form without stopping the conversation to explain irregular verbs.

Expand their sentences

This is a really simple activity that you can use with younger children.

Your child says:

"The dog ran."

You might respond:

"Yes, the excited dog ran across the muddy field."

You have just modelled several grammatical features without giving a formal grammar lesson. You could then ask your child to make the sentence even more interesting.

"The enormous, excited dog ran across the muddy field."

Have fun with it. Make the sentences ridiculous. Children tend to enjoy this much more than being told to "write a sentence containing an adjective".

Encourage storytelling

Storytelling is fantastic for developing language and grammar.

Ask your child to tell you a story and encourage them to include characters, settings, actions and descriptions.

You could give them three completely unrelated objects and challenge them to include all three in their story.

The more children talk and tell stories, the more opportunities they have to practise putting sentences together and choosing the right words.

Write regularly

Writing doesn't always have to mean sitting down to write a story.

Try:

• letters

• shopping lists

• instructions

• stories

• comics

• journals

• postcards

• recipes

• descriptions

• signs

• captions

The more children write for a real purpose, the more meaningful grammar becomes.

A child who wants to write instructions for their latest Lego creation has a genuine reason to think about how sentences work. That's much more useful than completing twenty sentences simply because a worksheet told them to.

Edit together

Editing is one of the best ways to teach grammar through writing.

Instead of covering your child's writing in red pen, sit down together and choose one or two things to look at.

"Let's see if we can find three places where you could make your sentences more interesting."

"Can you find a sentence that needs a full stop?"

"Let's check whether all of your verbs are in the past tense."

This turns correcting mistakes into part of the writing process rather than making your child feel as though their writing is simply full of things they got wrong.

Fun Grammar Games

Grammar games are a great way to practise skills without making every activity feel like a lesson.

Here are some simple ideas you can try at home.

Sentence Builder

Write words on separate pieces of paper or cards and ask your child to arrange them into a sentence.

Once they have made one, change one word and see how the meaning changes.

Word Sorting

Give your child a collection of words and ask them to sort them into groups such as nouns, verbs and adjectives.

You can make this more challenging as they get older by adding adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions and prepositions.

Noun Hunt

Choose a room, a book or even somewhere you are visiting and see how many nouns your child can find.

For younger children, simply identifying the objects is enough. Older children can begin thinking about common and proper nouns.

Verb Charades

Act out a verb and have your child guess what you are doing.

Run, jump, crawl, whisper, dance...

It's simple, but it gets children thinking about what verbs actually do.

Silly Sentence Challenge

Choose a noun, verb and adjective at random and make a silly sentence.

"The enormous penguin danced on the table."

Then keep adding words to make it more interesting.

Roll-a-Sentence

Put different types of words or sentence features on a dice. Roll it several times and use the results to create a sentence.

You can make this as simple or complicated as you like.

Fix My Sentence

Give your child a sentence containing a deliberate mistake.

"Yesterday I go to the park and play football."

Can they spot and correct the mistakes?

This works particularly well with older children.

Grammar Treasure Hunt

Choose one grammatical feature and look for it in a book.

How many verbs can you find on one page?

How many adjectives?

Can you find a sentence containing a conjunction?

Mad Libs

Mad Libs-style activities are brilliant for practising parts of speech because children have to think about what type of word is needed before they see the sentence.

And, importantly, they're usually funny.

Sentence Relay

Start a sentence and take turns adding to it.

"The girl..."

"The girl walked..."

"The girl walked slowly..."

"The girl walked slowly through..."

See how long you can make the sentence while keeping it grammatically correct.

Should I Correct Every Mistake?

No.

Please don't feel that you need to correct every grammatical error your child makes.

If you are having a conversation and your child says something incorrectly, constantly interrupting them to correct their grammar can make them reluctant to speak.

Instead, think about what matters most in that moment.

If your child says:

"Yesterday I goed swimming."

You can simply reply:

"Oh, you went swimming yesterday? Did you have fun?"

You've modelled the correct grammar without making the conversation about the mistake.

When you are specifically working on past tense verbs, however, you might decide that this is exactly the thing you want to focus on.

This is where homeschooling gives you a real advantage. You can choose what your child needs now, rather than correcting everything at once.

Try to focus on one or two areas at a time.

And remember that communicating confidently and enjoying language are important too.

Grammar Resources for Parents

You really don't need a huge collection of grammar resources to teach grammar at home.

In fact, I would start with the things you probably already have.

Quality children's books

These are probably your most useful resource.

Read widely and choose books with rich, interesting language. Your child will naturally encounter a huge range of grammatical structures through reading.

Simple workbooks

Workbooks can be useful, particularly as children get older and need practice with specific grammatical concepts.

I would just avoid making them the whole grammar programme.

A page of exercises can help reinforce a concept. It doesn't replace actually using the language.

Printable games

These can be useful when you want a quick activity to practise a particular skill.

Magnetic words

These are great for physically building and changing sentences, especially with younger children.

Grammar card games

There are lots available, or you can easily make your own. You don't need anything complicated.

Writing journals

A regular writing journal gives your child a reason to use grammar in their own writing and gives you plenty of opportunities to see what they understand.

Glossary - Common Grammar Terms Explained

If grammatical terminology makes you feel a little lost, don't worry. Here are some of the main terms you are likely to come across.

Don't worry if you don't remember all of these definitions immediately. I certainly don't expect you to sit down and memorise them!

The terminology is there to help you talk about language with your child. It isn't a test of whether you are a good homeschool parent.

Final Thoughts

Teaching grammar at home doesn't need to be complicated.

Grammar grows over years, through all the different ways children use language.

• Read together
• Talk
• Write
• Tell stories
• Play with words
• Notice interesting sentences

And when your child is ready, start giving some of those grammatical features their proper names.

You don't need to turn every afternoon into a grammar lesson. You don't need to correct every mistake. And you certainly don't need to be able to remember every grammatical term without checking!

Give your child lots of opportunities to hear and use good language, and then build their explicit grammar knowledge gradually as they are ready for it.

Consistency beats worksheets. Every time.

Related reading

Learning how to teach grammar at home is an important part of homeschooling, but it is only one piece of providing a well-rounded education. Understanding how writing fits into the wider homeschooling journey can help you support your child's learning with confidence.

For a complete overview, you can explore the full guide here: The Complete Guide to Homeschooling