Online Grammar Instruction from GrammarPlanet {Curriculum Review}

Thank you to GrammarPlanet for the opportunity to review their product!

In the world of homeschool curriculums, the options are endless. This variety is a really good thing because not every curriculum is going to be a good fit for every family. A program that one family loves might not work for another. And a program that starts out poorly might improve once you get the hang of using it.

That was my hope for GrammarPlanet. When the opportunity sprang up to review this particular product the website wasn’t even ready and I was not familiar with the company that it is associated with. I was unsure if we would be a good fit for the particular company. Yet when I saw that we were selected I simply set out to do what I always do on a review – use the product to the best of my ability and show my readers the benefits of a product.

What Is GrammerPlanet?

GrammarPlanet is an online grammar program that aims to teach children and adults how to use grammar. The program is based around video lessons, printable PDF files, practice sentences, and tests. Together these elements make up a unit. It is set up to be a mastery program. For the homeschooler, this means that if you fail to complete a unit you are locked out until your teacher resets your progress. This gives the parent the opportunity to see where the student has failed to learn the concept and review where needed.

This program was brand new to the market, so our entire review team ran into issues from the beginning. However, the creators at GrammarPlanet were quick to work on these issues and also welcomed feedback as the reviewers worked the program. We saw several changes and updates to the program during the review timeframe.

How To Use GrammarPlanet

The first thing you do with GrammarPlanet is log in and print a worksheet. This worksheet is a printed copy of much of what the speaker tells you in the video. You are encouraged to both print and use these sheets as you work through the program. The videos are relatively short, under 10 minutes for the most part, and offer several stopping points to answer a question or two about what has been presented so far. Once the video is completed you then begin working on the practice problems.

The practice problems allow the user to parse the sentence. Parsing a sentence is simply labeling each word with the corresponding part of speech. Once you feel you have labeled the words correctly to hit submit and are instantly told which words are correct, which are wrong, and which ones you missed. The number of practice problems you complete depends on the number of problems you get wrong. This is how GrammarPlanet really tries to enforce a mastery approach to grammar.

Depending on how many problems you get correct you will then move onto a test. However, if you get too many problems incorrect, you will be locked out of the system and the parent will need to unlock your account.

Before you can move onto the next unit you must pass your current unit. There are currently 13 units in the program and more will be added in the near future.

How Did We Use GrammarPlanet?

I actually used GrammarPlanet alongside my three oldest children. I did this so I could get a feel for how the program taught grammar, the videos, the practice problems, and the tests. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for myself and my children to run into issues with the program. While the program recommends just 15 minutes of practice three days a week, we were often locked out of the program before the 15-minute time frame. Being locked out, and not understanding why, it was challenging to encourage my children to try and continue the program.

However, I kept at it. As a reviewer, I was compelled to give this program every chance. Plus, this was a good learning opportunity for the kids. Together we were learning how to keep trying, how to step back and look at a challenging situation in a new way, and that not everything in life is going to be easy.

What Did We Think?

GrammarPlanet is good in concept, but lacking in application. The children found the videos boring to watch, and my two oldest did not understand why the speaker was not looking into the camera. While my kids have had years of prior grammar training, including both parsing and diagraming sentences, they often questioned why a word was marked as incorrect. As did I on more than one occasion. Repeatedly being locked out of the program made them was frustrating for them and made it difficult to keep them working on this both as well as they could and with an open mind.

Shorter sentences and a greater explanation of why a word should be parsed the way GrammarPlanet requires would go a long way in aiding a frustrated student or parent. As would the ability to simply move on. While I understand the idea of mastery, sometimes a student simply needs to move on and the concept will be understood at a later date. This program weaves both spiral and mastery learning together, so even a child who is unable to fully parse out an adjective will have the opportunity to do so later in the program. And while I enjoyed that each unit only focused on one new part of speech at a time, sometimes it can be challenging to understand how some words fit into that part of speech if you have a “big-picture” learner.

The free version of this program (the one we were using for this review) contains ads in two to three locations on the screen which are distracting to the student. For a one-time fee, you can purchase an ad-free version.

This program approaches grammar in a hard and technical manner, completely opposite to our approach. Repeatedly the speaker reminds the student to follow their system, however, we found their system to be confusing and difficult to follow. Even before the end of this review period all three of my children repeatedly asked to be removed from this review. Eventually, I did agree to this.

As for me, I kept going, kept attempting to see what this program could become. Knowing that we were testing out a new program I was willing to learn alongside my fellow reviewers and willing to keep trying. I kept looking to see if we were missing something, and began then looking to see what type of learners this program would most benefit. I still wonder if we were missing something with this program because the idea behind it is solid. And I know that both the review team and the creators at GrammaPlanet worked tirelessly with questions, answers, and issues. The response time and attention to reviewer feedback was excellent from GrammarPlanet leading me to believe that the customer service experience will be equally excellent.

At this point, however, I am chalking this experience up to a program that is simply not a good fit for us and reminding myself that not all curriculums are going to work for all families.