Elementary and Junior High Language Arts

Writing

VanDamme Academy’s writing program is unique among schools today. We carefully guide students through the process of outlining, writing a rough draft, and editing. Supervised writing time, in which the teacher is available to answer all manner of writing problems or questions, is a regular part of the students’ weekly schedules.

In the lower grades students learn how to construct articulate paragraphs, from summaries to descriptions to explanations. As they gain mastery of paragraphs, they move on to writing expository and narrative essays, as well as some creative and research essays. Whether the assignments are big or small, students are taught to brainstorm their ideas, organize them, and outline them before beginning a first draft. The teacher checks students’ work at each stage of the writing process.

The subject matter of our writing assignments is taken from the other subjects in our curriculum. VanDamme Academy students write about themes in the literature they read, ideas in science that they have studied, great events in history, and concepts from math and grammar. These writing assignments are in addition to other written activities students do in those respective subjects. Our students not only gain the invaluable skill of being able to coherently express themselves on paper, but they also improve and expand their grasp of material covered in other subjects.  

Grammar

Our grammar program is a blend of incremental learning about the core topics in English grammar, writing applications of these topics, and extension exercises that challenge students to apply their knowledge in different ways.

Here is a broad list of core topics, which students cover in increasing depth as they advance through the program:

• Parts of speech: what they are, identification of them, and special problems
• Sentences: simple, compound, complex, and types thereof
• Sentence analysis: subject, predicate, and different kinds of objects
• Language mechanics: capitalization and punctuation
• Phrases, clauses, and verbals

An example of a writing application might be (following a lesson on direct objects) to write a paragraph explaining what a direct object is and why it follows a transitive verb. In fleshing out their explanation, students would be expected to provide examples of sentences that include direct objects and that correctly identify the subject, verb, and direct object.  

A favorite extension exercise of VanDamme Academy students is an editing activity in which students identify six to ten grammar, spelling, or mechanics errors in a written paragraph. Students must explain their reasons for the changes they make in editing the pieces.

Vocabulary

VanDamme Academy students develop a rich vocabulary by engaging in a fun series of activities for each new word list that they cover.  

First, the class reads and discusses a word’s definition and its part of speech. Second, students invent their own oral sentences in which they use the new word. These are inevitably humorous and enthusiastic exchanges as students good-naturedly try to outdo one another in the creativity of their sentences. Making up oral sentences in this way allows the teacher to evaluate their understanding of a word and elaborate on its meaning if necessary, while giving the student an opportunity to use the word orally. Third, students engage in a variety of written exercises such as relating the new words to synonyms, identifying incorrect usages of the words, and using the words in crossword puzzles.

Spelling

VanDamme Academy spelling covers not only the basic spelling rules and exceptions in English, but also gives special attention to students’ individual spelling difficulties. Teachers achieve the latter by taking note of individual spelling problems as they mark students’ work, by showing students methods for improving these spelling difficulties, and by making time for them to do so.