Easy Grammar

Easy Grammar is Dr. Wanda Phillips's grammar curriculum, a long-running secular workbook series covering grades 3 through 12 that made a deliberate pedagogical bet thirty years ago, that students who learn to identify prepositional phrases first will understand the rest of English sentence structure faster than students who don't. The bet has held.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Subject-specialist / traditional / mastery-oriented grammar workbook
Worldview	Secular
Grades	3-12 (Easy Grammar Plus spans grades 3+; Daily Grams parallels at each grade)
Formats	Print (teacher editions, student workbooks, test books)
Cost tier	Budget
Parent intensity	2
ESA-common	Varies by state
Accredited	No
Established	Easy Grammar Systems by Dr. Wanda Phillips; long-running since the 1980s
Website	easygrammar.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Traditional grammar taught thoroughly; high school Plus editions reach college-prep level
Ease of teaching	5	Scripted and self-contained; answer keys in teacher editions; minimal parent prep
Content quality	4	Consistent exposition across grades; exercises are plentiful and varied
Flexibility	4	Pairs with any language-arts program; Daily Grams fits five-minute daily slots
Value for money	5	Workbook pricing in the mid-teens; a full-year program for one child runs under $60
Worldview scope	5	Fully secular; usable across every worldview family
Visual/design	2	Black-and-white workbook aesthetic; uninspiring by modern standards
Support resources	3	Teacher editions are adequate; no video or online platform

Who the publisher is

Easy Grammar is published by Easy Grammar Systems, a small Arizona-based publisher founded by Dr. Wanda Phillips. Phillips, a former classroom teacher with a doctorate in education, developed the Easy Grammar method in the 1980s around the claim that a prepositional-phrase-first approach shortcut the traditional sentence-diagramming progression by giving students a reliable early tool for identifying the non-essential parts of a sentence and, by elimination, finding the subject and verb. The first editions were classroom-adopted across Arizona; homeschool uptake grew through word of mouth and the Rainbow Resource catalog in the 1990s.

The company remains small and focused. The catalog includes Easy Grammar Plus (the core series, spanning grades 3 through 12 across multiple volumes) and Daily Grams (a parallel series providing short daily review at matching levels), along with test books and teacher supplements. There is no ed-tech platform, no video course, no curriculum app. The business is selling workbooks, at reasonable prices, with teacher editions and student workbooks clearly differentiated, through direct sale and distributor channels.

Easy Grammar is secular. Phillips's example sentences draw from general American life, neutral fact, and everyday usage. A Catholic, Protestant, LDS, Jewish, or secular family can run the full program without encountering a single theological example. This is neither a selling point the publisher emphasizes nor a political stance; it is simply how a competent secular publisher writes a grammar curriculum.

The core pedagogy

The house method is traditional grammar taught through a distinctive prepositional-phrase-first sequence. A student begins Easy Grammar by memorizing a list of prepositions (of, to, in, for, with, on, by, at, from, about, and perhaps another thirty). The student then learns to find every prepositional phrase in a sentence and cross it out, leaving the subject, verb, and any direct objects or modifiers visible without the distraction of prepositional phrases. From there the student builds through parts of speech, sentence types, punctuation, capitalization, and usage across the grade-level progression.

Signature mechanics: (1) Prepositional phrase elimination. The student's first substantive grammar tool is finding and crossing out prepositional phrases. This simplifies sentence analysis and gives students an immediate, usable heuristic for finding the subject and verb. Phillips's argument is that prepositional phrases are the most visible non-essential element in English sentences, and that removing them first clarifies everything else. (2) Spiraling review through Daily Grams. The parallel Daily Grams series provides "Guided Review Aiding Mastery Skills", short daily editing and usage exercises at each grade level. A student working Easy Grammar Plus as a grammar spine uses Daily Grams for five-to-ten-minute daily review at the start of the day. (3) Teacher edition reproduces student pages with answers. The teacher editions are usable, they include the full student page with answers written in, along with teaching notes and pacing guides. A parent can run the program from the teacher edition alone, checking student work against the printed answers. (4) Mastery before progression. Concepts are introduced, practiced, reviewed, and tested before the program moves to the next concept. Spiral review surfaces earlier material; the primary progression is mastery.

A day in the life

A fifth-grader using Easy Grammar Plus as the primary grammar spine and Daily Grams as daily review spends approximately twenty minutes a day on grammar. The day begins with five to seven minutes on the current Daily Grams exercise, a short spiral-review question set covering capitalization, punctuation, parts of speech, and usage. Then the student opens Easy Grammar Plus to the next lesson, say, a prepositional-phrase elimination exercise on a set of fifteen sentences. The student circles the prepositions and crosses out the prepositional phrases, then identifies the subject and verb in each remaining simplified sentence. The parent checks the page against the teacher edition and moves on.

A ninth-grader using Easy Grammar Plus 180 (the high school volume) runs a similar daily cadence at greater depth, ten to fifteen minutes on a longer lesson, covering more sophisticated material like phrase versus clause analysis, verb tense precision, or agreement across complex subjects. The program pairs naturally with a separate writing program (IEW, Writing & Rhetoric (CAP), or The Lost Tools of Writing) since Easy Grammar is a grammar-mechanics program rather than a composition program.

What they do exceptionally well

The prepositional-phrase heuristic works. The program's distinctive pedagogical move is also its strongest asset. Students who internalize the preposition list and the elimination habit develop a reliable, portable tool for sentence analysis that carries across subjects and across years. A fifth-grader who has mastered Easy Grammar's approach reads dense prose, including reading-comprehension passages on standardized tests, with a better chance of finding the grammatical spine. This is a measurable effect, not a marketing claim.

Affordability and straightforwardness. Teacher editions list at approximately $36-$42 and student workbooks at $17-$18 per the publisher's pricing as of April 2026. A parent running one child through a full grade-level set (teacher edition plus student workbook plus parallel Daily Grams workbook) typically spends $50-$75 for the year. Multi-child families can reuse teacher editions across siblings since they are non-consumable; only student workbooks need to be repurchased.

Self-sufficient instruction. The program is designed to be teachable by a parent without grammar background. Explanations are clear. Examples are plentiful. Answer keys are complete. A parent who finds their own grammar knowledge rusty can re-learn alongside the student by reading the teacher edition and checking worked examples. Few grammar programs are as parent-accessible.

Plays well with other language-arts components. Easy Grammar handles grammar mechanics. It does not try to handle reading, literature, writing, or spelling. This focus is a feature for families building an eclectic language-arts program: Easy Grammar + IEW writing + All About Spelling + independent reading is a common combination that works.

What they do poorly

Visual design is plain. The workbooks are black-and-white, dense with exercises, and aesthetically unchanged in design across decades. Children who thrive on full-color materials and illustrative layout may resist the format. The program's effectiveness does not depend on aesthetic, but first impressions matter for some students.

Writing is not taught here. Easy Grammar teaches grammar mechanics, not composition. A student who has completed Easy Grammar Plus knows parts of speech, sentence structure, and usage conventions. They have not been taught how to write an essay, develop a paragraph, or structure an argument. Families need to pair Easy Grammar with a separate writing program, and some families mistake grammar competence for writing competence, they are distinct.

Minimal student engagement machinery. The workbook is a workbook. There are no games, no gamification, no rewards, no animated characters. For students who need external motivation to complete drill-oriented work, the format is austere. The Daily Grams layer helps by breaking review into short daily servings, but the core Easy Grammar workbook is straightforward exercise practice.

Not the best sentence-diagramming resource. Traditional sentence diagramming (Reed-Kellogg style) is not the heart of Easy Grammar's method; the prepositional-phrase-elimination approach is a different tool. Families wanting rigorous sentence diagramming as the centerpiece of their grammar instruction typically use Shurley English or Analytical Grammar, and Easy Grammar families who want diagramming usually supplement.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Easy Grammar if: you want a secular grammar program that works reliably across the grade span; you value the prepositional-phrase-first heuristic or are willing to try it; your student handles workbook-format drill without resistance; you want a low-cost, low-prep, parent-usable grammar spine; you are running an eclectic language-arts program and want a grammar component that plays well with others; you value brevity (Daily Grams particularly) for daily review.

• Skip Easy Grammar if: you want sentence diagramming as the core pedagogical method (Shurley or Analytical Grammar are better fits); you need a grammar-plus-writing integrated program (IEW or The Good and the Beautiful language arts); your student will not engage with plain black-and-white workbooks without substantial resistance; you want video instruction or a digital platform.

Cost honest assessment

Teacher editions list at $36.95 to $41.95, and student workbooks at $16.95 to $17.95 per the publisher's pricing as of April 2026. Daily Grams at matching grade levels runs comparable workbook pricing. A family running the full package for one child, teacher edition + student workbook + Daily Grams workbook, typically spends $55-$75 per grade year. Teacher editions are reusable; multi-child families pay only the per-student workbook costs after the first child.

Compared to Rod and Staff English at approximately $20-$30 per student textbook plus teacher's edition, Easy Grammar is in the same general price band with different pedagogy (Rod and Staff uses traditional grammar with Mennonite worldview integration). Compared to The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts at $20-$35 per level, Easy Grammar is in the same cost range with different scope (TGTB is an integrated language-arts program; Easy Grammar is grammar-only). Compared to Fix It! Grammar (IEW) at approximately $30 per level, Easy Grammar is comparable in cost with more traditional-register instruction.

ESA eligibility notes

Easy Grammar is secular and appears on multiple state ESA marketplaces as an individual curriculum purchase, including through Rainbow Resource and Christianbook distributors where those marketplaces are ESA-integrated. Because the program is secular, it avoids worldview-based restrictions in states that limit religious materials, simplifying approval in jurisdictions like California's newer alternative-education funding programs and secular-strict ESA windows in other states. Families should verify title-level approval through their specific state's approved-vendor portal.

Alternatives

• Shurley English, a family would choose Shurley English over Easy Grammar for a signature "jingle"-driven grammar pedagogy with integrated writing and oral recitation, fitting families whose students respond well to musical mnemonics and an all-in-one language-arts structure.
• Analytical Grammar (Robin Finley), a family would choose Analytical Grammar over Easy Grammar for a concentrated middle-school-through-high-school grammar program taught through explicit sentence diagramming, with a more compact three-year completion window.
• Fix It! Grammar (IEW), a family would choose Fix It! Grammar over Easy Grammar for a grammar-through-editing approach that uses story excerpts rather than isolated sentences, fitting families who already run IEW writing and want a coordinating grammar component.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed Easy Grammar Systems's catalog, teacher edition and student workbook descriptions, and pricing at easygrammar.com in April 2026. We cross-referenced the prepositional-phrase-first pedagogy and grade-level scope against Cathy Duffy Reviews and Rainbow Resource. Prices and program details verified April 2026.