GrammarPlanet~ A Comprehensive Online Grammar Program...for Free! {a review}

Have you been looking for an in depth ONLINE Grammar curriculum that really gives a comprehensive curriculum? How about one that is free? For the last several weeks we have been reviewing GrammarPlanet, a program designed to help your child (or you!) master the mechanics of English. Let me share our review of this brand new program from the makers of the award winning Analytical Grammar!

About GrammarPlanet

GrammarPlanet is aimed for students aged 10-99+! It’s a free online curriculum designed to help anyone who desires to improve their English. Whether used by students in school, home, adults individually, or in a group, GrammarPlanet is sure to get them mastering the mechanics of English.


The program is very simple. Students log in and complete units on specific subjects--each unit begins with a teaching video and a PDF of notes (to be printed for use!). Once the student watches the video, they then complete a series of practice activities. Once these are completed, they then take a test of that subject. Because the system is responsive to the student’s work, students who take a little longer to "get it" will get more practice before the test. There is no time limit and students can take as much time as needed to master the material.

There are currently 13 units available with more being added weekly. Here is a list of all the 60 units that will be available once they are all completed!

According to one of the creators and teacher Erin, the core philosophy behind GrammarPlanet is Analytical Grammar, the book-based program that has been available in the homeschool market for more than two decades. The goal of GrammarPlanet is to have a grammar program that is affordable for anyone, regardless of the type of school, the economic background, the location, etc.

And remember--it is free! (but there is a paid version with no ads. More on that below)

My Thoughts on the Program

Compatible on our Kindle!

We came into this program having fairly extensive grammar training thanks to multiple other curriculum. Because of this, I signed up my eight year-old and my twelve year-old to work through the program, as well as myself to explore what it can do. At first, it took us a bit of going to work through how the program worked. It is similar in some areas to what we already know, but it’s also very different in its process.

There is a parent account which lists all the students signed up. At any time, you are able to view your student’s progress—right down to how they did on every practice question and every test question. You are also able to print off their reports for each unit, or just the total progress. You can also print off your “group’s” progress—basically print off a report that shows how all of your students are doing.

Every one of your children will have their own log-in information, so using it is as simple as having them log-in and go. When their dashboard comes up, they simply click “continue progress” and it will return them to where they left off—even if in the middle of practice questions or a test. When they are just starting a unit, it always begins with the video lesson. Before they get started, they will need to print off the lesson notes to follow along. The notes are available as a pdf and can be found by simply clicking the little orange button at the bottom of the lesson screen. It is VERY important to have this printed out. We started keeping ours in a 3-ring binder so that they could be accessed at any time. This is especially good for using the Pronoun page and preposition page as it lists MANY of the common pronouns and prepositions for reference in the future.

The video lessons are very good and have many examples of whatever is being taught. There are also 2-4 one question quizzes throughout the video to check on their understanding of what is being taught. They are all multiple choice or true/false. The video lessons explain exactly how to use the program, so it is VERY important that your child not skip it. Even if they think they KNOW what is being taught. It is also fantastic to have access to them if your child is working through the practice questions and forgets how to do things—they can simply go back and rewatch the videos as many times as necessary.

Now, once your child starts the practice, there is a fail-safe for you to make sure they aren’t moving too fast without understanding…if they miss too many questions, the program locks them out until the parent account resets their progress. It suggests to the student that they need to review the video lesson to make sure they understand what they need to do. One problem with this is that it will lock them out for too many of ANY errors, even silly ones your child might be making. So they may totally understand pronouns and getting THOSE marked right—but might be forgetting some adjectives or nouns studied earlier. So at times your child might get frustrated—I know my oldest did. But usually, it boiled down to him trying to go TOO FAST. So the locking down of his program, made him SLOW DOWN!

Another thing that the program does is increase the number of practice questions if needed. If your child misses one, it will add an extra. If your child gets them 100% correct, they will only do a bare minimum number. So the number they do in any unit is dependent on how well they are doing. I had units where I only had 10 questions, and units where I had 21 questions!

What if your child marks something correct they haven’t learned yet? They may still have it marked red (because it was an extra marking), but they won’t be penalized for it. This is very handy.

The practice questions are simple—they are given a sentence and each word is to be marked (if needed) according to the subjects that have been studied. Unit 1 has them starting by simply marking ONLY the nouns. So on the sentence, they would click the words they believe are nouns and then pick “n” for parsing the sentence. In the next unit they learn proper nouns, so for that set of practice they will mark the “n” AND the proper nouns “pn”. With each unit, you continue to mark what you learned previously. The options on the window that pops up for picking the proper part of sentence has them listed in the order they were learned. This is helpful as they are encouraged by the lessons to mark the sentence according to the order they learned them. Also there are things taught in this program NOT taught as much in other programs--specifically words that have more than one use. Words that we don't necessarily consider pronouns for instance. ("that" is one) So sometimes your child might need assistance working through those sections.

Here are some photos of what the practice questions look like, including what it looks like if they mark something wrong.

All marked correctly

A word marked as a noun--but it's actually a pronoun

This window comes up for every word. They click on the proper abbreviation to mark the word

Quiz results--only ever 5 questions

Now as I said, if your child makes too many errors, they will get a message telling them that they won’t be able to continue until their progress gets reset by the parent account. It also encourages them to revisit the lessons to make sure they are understanding everything AND to make sure they are using their notes. My oldest has been locked out twice---but it was good, because he was going TOO FAST and not checking his work. After I’ve reset his account (simply log into the parent account and reset progress to whatever unit you desire), I make him watch the video again before continuing. He has never been locked out of the same unit more than once.

Speaking of being locked out—whenever your child gets locked out, you will get an email letting you know so you can go reset the account. You also get emails when they complete a unit. I really appreciated getting the progress reports as they used it because it allowed me to stay on top of how they were doing.

The program encourages spending 10-15 minutes a day on the program. You will not probably complete an entire unit in this time. We didn’t realize the suggested time frame and pushed to finish and it just wasn’t feasible. But working 10-15 minutes 3-4 days a week was IDEAL. As of today, both boys are working through unit 5. My oldest has had to be reset twice, but my youngest isn’t having as much trouble because he’s more careful AND asks me to verify things for him. I have worked through it myself and I’m on unit 11 I think.

And speaking of progress, everything progress related is printable for your records. A major win! I also can see them as a group, or check individual progress. Here are some photos of that.

This is the parent dashboard. Each dot represents the unit your students are on

Closer look at the units each student is on when on different units

You get the scores of all the unit tests AND the average.

This shows you how many they have completed and their average score

An example of how you can print out a UNIT report as well.

Another thing—this program DOES introduce diagramming…but only beginning on unit 6. It also comes back on Unit 11 I think. The students are taught how to do it, and then they are told to use it to figure out the parsing of the sentences. Once they submit their practice answers, a key pops up in the right corner which can be clicked on to verify diagramming. They won’t actually DIAGRAM in the practice online itself. But it teaches you how to do it.

Notes include examples for them to follow of diagraming

Demonstrates a diagram of a sentence they were told to parse and diagram

One last thing to be aware of before I end—the FREE version of the program is an ad version. There will be ads in the sidebars, footers, and headers. There also will be adds before it returns them to their dashboard at the end of a unit. Honestly, the ads are VERY distracting because they flash and move. BUT considering this is TOTALLY FREE and very very extensive grammar training, most of us can deal with some ads. If you choose NOT to do ads, there is a an option of using the paid program. The only difference is there are no ads. It is a ONE-time fee of $39. Once your student is a paid, your parent account is also ad-free. There is also NO TIME LIMIT to how long it takes to complete the program. It will continue to be ad-free once you pay your fee. For the beginning of the review we had a free version, and then we had the ad-free version to try. Ad-free is better because of less distractions--but that's it.

See all the ads? Some of them blink and move which can be annoying.

In summary, this is an excellent grammar program. High level. High quality. Fully online. It includes video lessons, practice questions, quizzes, reviews…everything you need for a grammar curriculum. And it. Is. Free. Let me repeat that…

It. Is. Free.
You guys, there is NOTHING to lose in using this program! Whether you want it for a review or as actual curriculum. You have nothing to lose! I recommend you give it a try. You may discover it’s exactly what you have been waiting for!

I would advise that it's not for early elementary--the age range IS 10+. My youngest has had grammar already, which is why at 8, I am still letting him do it. But I honestly don't think I would advise it for anyone younger. Mostly because the words used for the sentences are NOT easy to read words. Someone would have to read it to them and then they may not understand a lot of the words themselves. My 8 year old is a strong reader. He just asks if there is a word he doesn't understand. But he is JUST only enough to use this program.

Will we use it? Because we get it for basically forever…I plan on using it to review any grammar lessons we learn with our other grammar program. It will be a good check in to see if they really know it. Because—it’s free!

Want to Know More?

For the last several weeks we have been reviewing the FREE online course GrammarPlanet. You have seen how we have used it and my thoughts on it. But I encourage you to visit other crew members to learn more!
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