Community reviews for Grammar Bytes!

I'm surprised that this is not rated higher on graphite. Chompchomp.com offers solid explanations of some of the toughest grammar terms and concepts, youtube videos and PP presentations for further understanding, interactive exercises, printable exercises (they are the same), and a MOOC that has three levels of quizzes and badging. Although I wish I could organize students in the MOOC it's not hard to keep track of what students accomplish. The interactive quizzes offer great practice, and there are explanations for each answer that the students can access whether they answer correctly or incorrectly. I really enjoy chomp chomp.com, and it makes grammar painless for my students.

The website's videos are a bit repetitive, but they do reinforce concepts students may have explored previously. Not sure I would use this to introduce or solely teach concepts for middle school students, as I feel students may need a bit more instruction, but it may be a good tool for high school-aged students. I do like the fact that I can guide students to complete practice exercises on their own and I enjoy the plethora of free review tools, downloadable worksheets, PowerPoint presentations and videos. Overall it is a good tool for review and the introduction of grammar units, but teachers would likely supplement it with some of their own instructional materials too.

The exercises in Grammar Bytes far outweigh the instructional materials. My students found the responses to answering the interactive questions entertaining, but that also distracted a bit from the practice as they were more interested in what the screen would say if they were right/wrong than answering questions correctly.

Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips is suite of products including an iOS app, website, podcast, and even a book featuring Mignon Fogarty. Students in middle school and high school, especially those with an interest in understanding punctuation, capitalization, writing style, and other aspects of the English language from the arcane to the everyday will find Fogarty to be a companionable, quirky, and sometimes humorous companion. The iOS application allows you to listen to podcasts ad free while listeners through the web site or iTunes will hear brief sponsorship messages (think NPR) as part of her presentation. The $1.99 application also provides bonus audio content not available on the web site. Web users can subscribe Grammar Girl e-mail newsletters, and submit photos of interesting grammar-related items through Flickr. Grammar Girl is part of a larger collection of "Quick and Dirty Tips" subjects owned by publishing giant Macmillan, so it is possible that students coming to the site could wander to other areas on the site including Money, Career and ork, Lifestyle, Health, and Pets. As far as I could see there is nothing within these areas that are inappropriate for children, but some students may find their topics to be of greater personal interest to them than grammar.