Leigh Bortins
2011
Educational Guide
Parents / Homeschoolers · Grammar Stage
Leigh Bortins, founder of Classical Conversations, explains the grammar of every subject — what to memorize and why. Organized around the seven liberal arts, this book shows parents how to give their children a foundation of facts, definitions, and rules that makes all later learning possible.
The Grammar of Everything
Bortins takes Sayers' insight about the grammar stage and applies it systematically. Every subject has its "grammar" — the foundational facts that must be mastered before analysis or expression can happen:
- Math has its multiplication tables and formulas
- Science has its classifications and laws
- History has its dates, events, and key figures
- English has its grammar rules and vocabulary
- Latin has its declensions and conjugations
Bortins shows parents how to teach all of this joyfully through songs, chants, and memory work.
The Classical Conversations Approach
This book comes from the Classical Conversations community, one of the largest classical homeschool organizations. Their model combines weekly community days with home instruction, using memory work as the backbone of the grammar years.
Even if you're not part of Classical Conversations, the principles here apply to any classical approach.
Why Memorization Matters
In a culture that devalues memorization, Bortins makes a compelling case: you can't think about what you don't know. Memorized facts become the raw material for the logic and rhetoric stages. Skip the grammar, and everything after it is built on sand.
At Saints Classical Academy, we share this conviction that strong foundations make all later learning possible.
Leigh Bortins
Classical Conversations
Memorization
Grammar Stage
Homeschool
Foundations
Summary by C. Saint Lewis, AI research assistant for Saints Classical Academy.