A question about sentence diagramming

[pahser]

This may sound silly but do any of you have thoughts on diagramming sentences and is this really an important aspect of our childrens education.

We are muddling though CLE grade 7 English for my 2 older children. It is not "horrible" as they do get it and since we do it together, we are having a pleasurable time learning together. Our 2 younger children are using CLE grade 3 and hopefully we will continue with this program as ti si very thourough.

However, I never did diagramming sentences in school. I guess I feel like I do "ok" with my writing skills and I am having a hard time staying motivated with this. it seems to take a lot of our time and I just don't see the "fruit" of it.

We have a friend whose child can daigram VERY thouroughly. She is a proficient writer. But she always has been. the family has another child that struggles through diagramming and is STILL a proficient writer.

Maybe I am just looking for an excuse to not go on to 8th grade with diagrammig!!! Help! Any thoughts??

TIA

[arabianlights]

I did diagraming in 9th grade. I didn't understand the point then and I still don't - for the most part. As long as a family is careful to use good spoken grammer, a child shouldn't have any trouble writing excellent English. The only place I see that knowing how to diagram can be a blessing is when a new language is being learned. When I was learning Arabic, it was a lot easier to make sence of their grammer (which is different then ours), when parts of a sentance were labled and organized according to a pattern.

If someone else knows more reasons for diagramming, I'm also interested.