English teachers, who gathered recently for a professional development session on grammar instruction, learned about "teaching the new grammar," a concept that calls for integrating grammar with reading and writing exercises.

Other factors fueling this renewed interest in grammar include parents' concerns that writing standards have been slipping over the years, and that the Maryland High School Assessment English exam and the new SAT test each have grammar components, [Brian Wienholt] said.

"Researchers said that students who studied traditional grammar in an isolated way - learning parts of speech and filling in the blanks with the right word - didn't write any better than people who didn't study grammar," said the author of Understanding English Grammar, a textbook in its sixth printing.