Happy Friday friends! It’s the end of another week of learning and today I get to share with you one my favorite vendors, the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW).
We have used and reviewed several of their award winning products over the course of the last 10 homeschooling years. Last time I reviewed for IEW, we reviewed their Fix It! Grammar program and we received Frog Prince, or Just Desserts, Book 3. I am so excited today to share our review of The Nose Tree, Book 1.
If you have been on the homeschool scene for any length of time I am sure you have heard of Mr. Pudewa and his company, Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). His mission is to teach children "…to write well, think clearly, and express themselves eloquently and persuasively." You might be surprised to hear that IEW is just a company for teaching writing, but it’s not! They also have a complete grammar program as well. Let me tell you a little more about it!
Pamela White, a certified Accomplished Instructor for IEW is the author of the Fix It! Grammar series. She holds an M.A. in English and A.B.D. from Vanderbilt University and currently teaches online for IEW. Fix It! Grammar was developed by Pamela after she was frustrated with traditional methods of teaching children grammar.
This grammar and writing curriculum is apart of the newly revised Language Arts series that teaches the principles of grammar through real stories. These real stories use sentences that contain common errors that your student may make in their own writing. The principle of parsing a sentence and finding the errors helps students in the long run learn correct grammar and punctuation.
As you can see from the comparison chart there are many parts of grammar that is covered. If you need help placing your child into the right book, a placement test is available. However, IEW recommends that all learners start with book 1, regardless of age.
Because I was specifically looking for another grammar program for McKenzie when this review came available and the fact that she has had limited, beginning grammar instruction I knew she would start at the beginning of the program with Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree {book 1}. The student book retails for $15.00, while the teacher’s manual costs $19.00.
The Fix It! Grammar program is designed to just take 15-20 minutes a day, four times a week. As they progress through the book, the child will actually be writing a complete story. The student guide and the Fix It! Grammar: Nose Tree {Book 1} Teacher Manual cover 33 weeks of daily passages to correct, daily vocabulary instruction that covers 132 vocabulary words in total, reproducible student pages, clear and precise teacher’s notes and a grammar glossary. This is an easy to use program that includes daily vocabulary, indenting, capitals, marking and identifying subjects, verbs, and prepositional phrases, sentence openers, clauses, and punctuation errors; divided into 4 parts, learn it, fix it, discuss, copy it.
Learn it ~ explore a new grammar concept.
Fix it ~ find and fix errors within a short passage, four times a week.
Discuss it ~ apply the correct grammar to the passage.
Copy it ~ rewrite the corrected passage within a notebook.
Completing the work each week follows the same format with Monday being the day that I teach the weekly concept and demonstrate the correct markings. The rest of the week we study, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday with Fix It! Grammar. Since the program follows the same weekly format, McKenzie who is just finishing up 3rd grade, she is able to work somewhat independently through the daily passages with me in the room to field questions.
While my older girls have been using a solid grammar program, the opportunity to use the Nose Tree book with McKenzie has been a blessing. We are in a different season in our family where it is just me versus the children. This program helps me know that McKenzie is getting the grammar instruction she needs. McKenzie likes that she is writing a story while doing her lessons and I like that the Grammar cards that have helpful reminders of the rules of grammar are included. McKenzie likes the story aspect of the work and I especially like the included Grammar cards for extra review.
This grammar and writing program works great for us and we will be finishing this book and moving on to the next book once finished. I also plan to have my soon to be 7th grader, Montana, start in Book 3, Fix It! Grammar: Frog Prince, or Just Desserts in August and use it as a supplement to our Grammar program.
I recommend that you check out the Fix It! Grammar series if you are looking for a strong, solid grammar and Language Arts program, either as a stand alone program or as a supplement. McKenzie enjoys completing her grammar lessons and that make this Mama happy!
Fix It! Grammar gets the job done! But don’t just take my word for it. Be sure to check out what 59 of my CrewMates thought of the Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree {book 1} or any of the other 5 books being reviewed by clicking the banner below.
Format ~ paperback, spiral bound notebooks
Price ~ teacher’s manual, $19.00; student book, $15.00
Ages ~ 3rd grade and up
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