Practice Makes Perfect: Exploring Grammar

McGraw-Hill's Practice Makes Perfect series is built around a single editorial rule: keep the explanation short and the exercises long. Each topic gets a page or so of plain explanation followed by several pages of drills, and the ratio stays that way throughout. For a learner who has already had a concept explained and simply needs repetition to make it automatic, that is exactly the right shape.

Exploring Grammar covers the standard ground of English sentence structure, including parts of speech, subject and verb agreement, tense, phrases and clauses, modifiers, and common usage traps. The treatment is aimed at learners around middle school through high school, whether they are second language learners or native speakers who never got a systematic grammar education.

For homeschooling the appeal is practical rather than pedagogical. It is inexpensive, there is a lot of it, and it comes with an answer key, so it fills the gap that opens up when a family is using a good course book that simply does not include enough practice. Many ESL programs, especially the visual ones, are light on drill by design, and this is a cheap way to add it without switching curricula.

It is not a course. There is no built-in progression that assumes a learner starting from nothing, and there is no listening or speaking component at all. Handing a genuine beginner this book will produce frustration. Its place is second, after something has taught the concept.

The series is large and the titles are easy to confuse, since McGraw-Hill publishes separate Practice Makes Perfect volumes on English grammar for ESL learners, verb tenses, vocabulary, and more. Check you have the volume matching the gap you are filling before ordering.