When you get dressed in the morning, do you put your shoes on first and then try to put your socks on top? Would you teach your child algebra when he hasn’t mastered simple addition and subtraction yet?

The answer to these questions is, of course, no. Unless you’re trying to make a bold fashion statement to get your socks dirty or play a practical joke on your child, I wouldn’t do either of these things. For the same reason that you put shoes after socks and teach your child addition and subtraction before algebra, diagramming is one of the best ways to learn grammar.

When you learn grammar by diagramming sentences, you are first introduced to the simpler grammatical elements (subjects and verbs), and gradually develop the more complex elements. Diagramming sentences follows a logical order (just like putting on shoes!), naturally building your grammar knowledge. It prepares us to tackle the concepts we are ready for and leaves the more difficult ones until we are ready to tackle them.

This is good news because it means we can all avoid the inescapable confusion I found myself in when my teacher was teaching me gerunds when I still had a shaky understanding of nouns and verbs. (If you don’t know what gerunds are, that’s fine. Me neither. They’re nouns disguised as verbs, those tricky little imps!) It’s very hard to understand the function of a gerund when you don’t fully understand it. nouns and verbs. It’s like a painter trying to mix the color orange when it doesn’t have yellow or red. Giving a painter this task can be so frustrating that he may never want to paint again. Giving a student this assignment can be so frustrating that they may never want to try it again.

The necessary order of diagramming for mastery of the topics is not only beneficial for the student, but also for the teacher. As a teacher, it can sometimes be very daunting to figure out what to teach our students in the best order to ensure their understanding. The nature of the layout dictates the order in which you should teach the topics and ensures that the student masters each concept before moving on to the next.

Oh, and did I mention that diagramming sentences is FUN? Oh really. After teaching grammar to a variety of grade levels, I am constantly amazed by both the excitement students exude when they are diagramming and their level of understanding and retention of the concepts covered while diagramming.

Diagramming sentences introduces grammatical elements in a natural, flowing way that will keep students engaged and excited about learning. This is revolutionary because it means we can all learn easily, retain what we’ve learned, and have fun doing it. Isn’t that something worth investigating?