#14 of 15 Ways to Teach Your Child to Write Using Books -- It Takes Time

Every subject takes time to learn, whether you are doing block study -- studying a single subject in-depth intensively for a short period of time -- or piecing it out over a year. My daughter, Becki, Queen of Research, has discovered that if you study any subject for either 1,000 hours or 7 years, that you will become an expert in it. We can have our students fill in blanks in workbooks, or dissect the passages they read, but that kind of literary education is actually quite new, being taught starting only in the 50s and 60s. C. S. Lewis, the English professor, despised this kind of literary analysis. He preferred the traditional, immersion method. He himself was a voracious reader reading every book in his father's house - and books were stacked on the stairs and in the attic. The immersion method teaches by osmosis. Children learn language usage by reading the best books.

I have never taught Grammar. Once, maybe, for a few weeks. And, we've read "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves", a funny book about punctuation. But, aside from helping my graduates format their final papers, never have I taught Grammar and every one of them got 24 or above on the English portion of the ACT and those who took the English CLEP passed the first time. They may not know what a noun is, but they definitely understand noun/verb agreement. But, this comes from hours reading on their own, both required and elective reading, and reading together.

I heard a quote from a football player: "An amateur practices till he gets it right; a professional practices until he can't get it wrong." And, that only comes with time, whether practicing football, or the English language.