Now that I have custody of my 17 year old son, I have to get him caught up on some of the subjects he has fallen behind on. In grammar he is working at about a 3rd grade level. I need to get him caught up. We have a long way to go. One problem I have is the text I have found to use with him is written for 3rd graders (duh!) and he finds it insulting to use it.

Is there a good, from the ground up book on English grammar that I can get for him?

Siting and doing school is tough for him. What he really wants is to be out working, doing something physical that makes a difference. But he is behind in all of his subjects.

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“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” --Albert Einstein

Start off with Easy Grammar. http://easygrammar.com/ He can take the placement test to see where he needs to start. He may "balk" about having to do 3rd grade work, but if he really wants to improve w/o being frustrated, he needs to deal with where he is at. I"m not trying to be rude or insensitive, but it is what it is.

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Prayer should be your first response.
Not your last resort.

He is not balking at doing third grade work so much as he is insulted at having to work out of a text written for 8-year-olds.

I have a copy of English Grammar for Dummies on hold at the library. We will see how that works out.

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“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” --Albert Einstein

Hi Scott,

I have two suggestions for you. First, you could try Warriner's English from the 1980's. These are a little scarce since lots of homeschoolers like them. The other excellent choice would be Rod and Staff 9th and 10th grade English books. These cover EVERYTHING, but they do it quickly because they sum up all grammar and writing principles. They are super thorough and put the student at a college level.

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Congratulations on custody! : )

I like your "dummies" idea.

I don't know your son, and I know that at 17 a young person can be mentally well into adulthood, or in contrast - still wanting to play with dolls or trucks. Which makes it a little tough to recommend something from a distance.

For an (almost) adult student who feels restless, videos might be easier to take than a textbook.

I found this with a quick google (don't know how good it is or isn't, but it looks promising) http://alison.com/search/result/?q=English+Grammar. It is "college" but I've never taken a college English overview course that didn't start right back with "what is a noun?"

Also, with our foreign language study we've had remarkable success finding good stuff on Youtube - believe it or not. If you get an outline of grammar topics like this one: (http://www.sinclair.edu/centers/tlc/pub ... basics.pdf) I would predict that you can search youtube for a video on each topic, and compile an entire video course. They have lots of stuff for adults - like ESL, or remedial students - so you shouldn't have any trouble finding stuff age-appropriate (I was just looking this up the other day for an ESL friend, so I know they've got a good selection)

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A lot of our CC mom's use a book called Our Mother Tongue. It's a straightforward explanation of grammar with some exercises at the end. Get that book and the answer key.