Skills for Super Writers Teacher Guide Grade 5

When a language arts expert like Modern Curriculum Press gives us a user-friendly, comprehensive worktext for the grammar, usage, and mechanics of writing, it's time to sit up and take note. This series covers the skills that students need in order to be accomplished and excellent writers. Each lesson includes a daily language practice (classroom editing project), a short instructional sequence, practice exercises (two per lesson), experience with writing their own sentences, and a concluding editing passage. While the center of each lesson is the focus on a particular skill, the beginning and ending of the lesson shows how those skills relate to writing. The seventy lessons are divided into four units which include Grammar and Usage: Sentences, Nouns, and Verbs (25 lessons), Grammar and Usage: Other Parts of Speech (17 lessons), Mechanics: Capitalization, Abbreviation, Punctuation (14 lessons), and Spelling (14 lessons). There are two reviews and two check-ups (i.e. tests) for each unit. One nice thing about this series - there is no grade-level designations anywhere on the books. They are color-coded, though - 3rd - red; 4th - purple; 5th - green. While this makes it tricky for us - it also makes it tricky for your student to know at what grade level they're working. The fact that the three levels correspond to grades 3-5 emphasize the importance of grammar and mechanics for this stage of learner and at this stage of writing instruction. The Student Book is a consumable worktext with accent color. The Teacher's Guide, also with an accent color, includes a full-text answer key plus short (helpful) teaching segments. Not too overpowering - in fact, just enough. Can you do it without the Teacher's Guide? Sure, if you're comfortable about not having the answers but you'll be missing out on the expertise of the MCP educators and the daily language practice which is found only in the Teacher's Guide. Student - 192 pgs, pb , Teacher - 230 pgs, pb. ~ Janice

These materials offer a complete and comprehensive coverage of all three elements - grammar (i.e. parts of speech, complete sentences), usage (i.e. homophones, figures of speech, proper word choice to convey meaning), and mechanics (i.e. punctuation, capitalization).