This 3rd edition (2024) is not compatible with the 1983 edition. Significant changes include: more review and more frequent tests; wall charts provided to drill key concepts; nouns and verbs introduced before sentence types and structure; diagraming introduced.

Preparing to Build (3rd Edition) contains 13 chapters with a total of 143 lessons. For the first 4-5 weeks of the grade, it is recommended to focus on math and reading, waiting to begin this English course until students can read fluently.

When students are ready for English, begin class five days a week. This allows a number of extra days in the school year on which the students may review and do a worksheet before continuing with the workbook. Walk slowly through this course. The first chapters focus on nouns and verbs. Teaching these chapters thoroughly is of utmost importance. The final chapter, which focuses on comparing with adjectives and using quotation marks, is optional material.

This course focuses on identifying nouns and verbs within the sentence structure. It seeks to make the abstract concepts of noun and verb as concrete as possible by referring to things we see and do. This course encourages marking each part of speech in a different color as a visual aid. Placing nouns and verbs on a diagram provides drill and help the child to visualize how they relate to each other. The course drills the basic terminology of English grammar, such as noun, common, proper, action verb, being verb, possessive, comma, and so on. This course also introduces sentence types, basic punctuation, and paragraph structure. The "Additional Skills" exercises review or introduce word usage, ABC order, poetry, and dictionary use, and are helpful to include as long as they do not crowd out basic grammar.

The Teacher's Manual lists the purpose for each lesson: those preceded by a star identify a new concept for this course. Purposes marked "Additional Skills" relate to the last section of the pupil lesson, which is optional. Teach these sections at your discretion. The book provides step-by-step instructions for class time. It contains help for possible areas of difficulty as well as additional notes and drill activities. The student lesson is given in a reduced format with the answers filled in.

A set of Wall Charts forms the backbone for class time. (If you make your own charts, make sure they match the Class Time exercises and workbook exercises.) This set of charts is intended for Grade 3 as well (3rd Edition in development), so some items on the charts will not be used in Grade 2.

The Workbooks have four, and later five, parts in each lesson (2-3 pages). The core parts of the lesson build one upon another; you cannot omit these without hindering the students' progress in future lessons. The final part of the lesson, in contrast, does not build upon a previous lesson. You can omit some of these "Additional Skills" according to the needs of your class, as these skills may be covered in other parts of your curriculum and the material in these exercises are not included in the tests.

Tests are included in the workbooks at the end of each chapter, in a format nearly identical to the daily lessons, helping the teacher know if the student has mastered the material and is ready to move on.

A booklet of optional Worksheets is also provided. Use these for students who need extra drill or have spare time. If students have difficulty with a lesson, take an extra day to review the concept and to assign a worksheet.

Supplementary items (not included):

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Nouns

• 1. Nouns That Name People
• 2. Nouns With Two Words
• 3. Nouns That Name Places
• 4. Nouns That Name People and Places
• 5. Nouns That Name Things
• 6. Nouns That Name Things We Cannot See
• 7. People, Places, and Things
• 8. Working With Names
• 9. Reviewing Nouns
• 10. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 11. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 2 - Common and Proper Nouns

• 12. Proper Nouns for People
• 13. More Proper Nouns for People
• 14. Proper Nouns for Places
• 15. More Proper Nouns for Places
• 16. Proper Nouns for Days and Months
• 17. Reviewing Proper Nouns
• 18. Capital Letters for Initials
• 19. Proper Nouns for Pets and Businesses
• 20. Proper Nouns for the Bible
• 21. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 22. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 3 - Verbs

• 23. Verbs Show Action
• 24. More About Action Verbs
• 25. Reviewing Action Verbs
• 26. Verbs Show Being
• 27. More Being Verbs
• 28. Verbs Show Action or Being
• 29. Reviewing Action and Being Verbs
• 30. Nouns and Verbs
• 31. More Nouns and Verbs
• 32. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 33. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 4 - Diagraming and Sentence Types

• 34. Learning to Diagram
• 35. Diagraming Two Verbs
• 36. More Diagrams With Two Verbs
• 37. Diagraming Two Nouns
• 38. Statement and Question Sentences
• 39. Being Verbs as Helping Verbs
• 40. Diagraming Helpnig Verbs
• 41. Command Sentences
• 42. More Command Sentences
• 43. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 44. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 5 - More Verbs

• 45. Diagraming Command Sentences
• 46. A Helping Verb Triplet
• 47. Diagraming Statement and Command Sentences
• 48. Two More Helping Verb Triplets
• 49. Three Helping Verb Twins
• 50. Changing Question Sentences to Statement Sentences
• 51. Diagraming Question Sentences
• 52. More Diagrams of Question Sentences
• 53. Review of Diagrams and Verbs
• 54. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 55. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 6 - Singular and Plural Nouns

• 56. Singular and Plural Nouns
• 57. Adding s or es
• 58. More Singular and Plural Nouns
• 59. Nouns That End With y
• 60. Nouns That End With f or fe
• 61. More Plural Nouns
• 62. Working With Singular and Plural Nouns
• 63. Two More Plural Nouns
• 64. Plurals, Plurals, Plurals
• 65. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 66. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 7 - Verb Tenses

• 67. Present and Past Verbs
• 68. Verbs That End With y
• 69. Reviewing Present and Past
• 70. Present and Past With Being Verbs
• 71. Do and See
• 72. Go and Come
• 73. Sing and Give
• 74. Bring and Begin
• 75. Run and Fly
• 76. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 77. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 8 - Pronouns

• 78. The Pronouns I and Me
• 79. More About I and Me
• 80. The Pronoun You
• 81. The Pronouns He and Him
• 82. The Pronouns She and Her
• 83. Using a Noun and a Pronoun Together
• 84. The Pronoun It
• 85. Combining Sentences With Pronouns
• 86. Working With Pronouns
• 87. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 88. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 9 - More Pronouns

• 89. The Pronouns We and Us
• 90. More About We and Us
• 91. The Pronouns They and Them
• 92. We and Us, They and Them
• 93. Diagraming Pronouns
• 94. Working With It, They, and Them
• 96. You: Singular and Plural
• 97. More Work With You
• 98. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 99. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 10 - Commas and Apostrophes

• 100. Nouns in a Series
• 101. Verbs in a Series
• 102. Commas in Dates
• 103. Review of Commas
• 104. Using 's
• 105. More With With 's
• 106. Writing Possessive Nouns
• 107. More Possessive Nouns
• 108. Possessives and Plurals
• 109. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 110. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 11 - Adjectives

• 111. Adjectives—What Color?
• 112. Adjectives—What Size? What Shape?
• 113. Adjectives—What Kind Of?
• 114. Diagraming Adjectives
• 115. More Diagrams With Adjectives
• 116. Adjectives—How Many?
• 117. Adjectives—Articles
• 118. More About Articles
• 119. Adjectives That Describe Clearly
• 120. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 121. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 12 - Paragraphs

• 122. Learning About Paragraphs
• 123. More Work With Paragraphs
• 124. Putting Sentences in Order
• 125. More Work With Sentence Order
• 126. Sentences That Do Not Belong
• 127. Working With Sentences That Do Not Belong
• 128. Writing Titles
• 129. Writing a Title for a Paragraph
• 130. Writing a Paragraph
• 131. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 132. Testing What You Have Learned

Chapter 13 - More Adjectives and Quotations

• 133. Comparing With Adjectives
• 134. More Comparisons
• 135. Comparing With Adjectives That End With y
• 136. More Work With Comparisons
• 137. Comparisons With Good and Bad
• 138. Quotations That Are Statement Sentences
• 139. More Quotations That Are Statement Sentences
• 140. Quotations That Are Question Sentences
• 141. More Quotations That Are Question Sentences
• 142. Reviewing What You Have Learned
• 143. Testing What You Have Learned

Additional Skills

• 1-5. Identifying Complete Sentences
• 6-10. Answering Questions With Complete Sentences
• 12-16. Periods and Question Marks to End Sentences
• 17-21. Creative Writing
• 23-27. Copying Sentences With Capital Letters and End Marks
• 28-32. Creative Writing
• 34-43. Homophones
• 45-54. Contractions
• 56-62. Opposites
• 63-65. Homophones and Opposites
• 67-73. Synonyms
• 74-76. Opposites and Synonyms
• 78-87. Alphabetical Order
• 89-98. Alphabetical Order
• 100-106. Rhyming Words
• 107-109. Using Rhyming Words in Poems
• 111-120. Finding Words in a Dictionary
• 122-126. Finding Pronunciations in a Dictionary
• 127-131. Finding Definitions in a Dictionary
• 133-134. Writing Paragraphs
• 135-136. Writing Titles
• 137. Writing Paragraphs
• 138-142. Comparisons

Wall Charts

Chapter 1

• 1. Nouns

Chapter 2

• 2. Common Nouns / Proper Nouns

Chapter 3

• 4. Verbs

Chapter 4

• 12. Diagraming—1
• 11. Sentence Types

Chapter 5

• 12. Diagraming—1
• 5. Helping Verbs

Chapter 6

• 3. Singular and Plural Nouns

Chapter 7

• 6. Verb Tenses
• 7. Irregular Verbs

Chapter 8

• 8. Personal Pronouns

Chapter 9

• 12. Diagraming—1
• 8. Personal Pronouns

Chapter 10

• 14. Punctuation—1

Chapter 11

• 13. Diagraming—2
• 9. Adjectives

Chapter 13

• 15. Punctuation—2