Friday, April 5, 2019

Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) - Fix It! Grammar - Robin Hood series Review





Writing is a tough subject in our house.  We were super excited to get the opportunity to review the Fix It! Grammar - Robin Hood grammar set from Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW).  Skills that have been a struggle are gradually getting easier.



There are six different levels for the Fix It! Grammar series.  In this series, students get to hunt for grammatical mistakes in just a short sentence each day.  They correct the errors and each days work of only about 15 minutes builds on the previous day, and even the previous week.  Really giving students a sense of accomplishment as they see all their hard work coming together into a full piece of writing.

Fix It! Grammar - Robin Hood is the second level in the Fix It! Grammar series from IEW.  We started out with the Robin Hood, since I thought that Lydia had a handle on more basic skills.  Choosing is super easy, since IEW has kindly created a chart for you to easily select what set to start with.

You can easily start with Fix It! Grammar - Nose Book, no matter what the age level of your student.  For parents with kids who have special needs or other learning disabilities, you know that using materials that are below grade level can sometimes be a problem.  Especially since older students do not like seeing cartoon characters in their daily work.  In some cases, students could be resistant to using the product and then they do not learn the essential skills that they so desperately need.  Fix It! Grammar - Nose book' story is not just a little kid story, so age range for using Fix It! Grammar series is fairly open.  Even if your middle/high school student might be struggling, this is still a great program for them.

Since Lydia had basic capital skills and a grasp on most grammatical phrases, we started in Robin Hood.  We received both the Teacher's Manual and the Student Book.  It is very easy to use.  At the back of the student book, there are cards that you can either visit while using your workbook, or cut out and keep in a container with your work.  I opted to not cut out the cards.  Cards laying around tend to get lost and are also a major distraction for Lydia.  She sits and plays with them.


The cards actually act as a reminder for the student about what they are learning about that week in their writing.





Each week, I spend maybe five minutes looking at the three pages in the Teachers Manual.  It has each day broken down (and almost scripted) and let's you as the teacher know what you will be covering that week.



Our daily grammar work usually only lasts about 10-15 minutes, depending on Lydia's attention span.  We cover the sentence in our reading.  She highlights and marks the errors.  Another perk is that vocabulary is mixed in almost every day also.  Vocabulary words are highlighted in the sentence and the definition is included in the Teachers Manual.  We discuss the word along with the fixes that she needs to make.  At the end of the four days, she then adds all four sentences to her ongoing writing.  This is a cumulative group of paragraphs that not only helps with her grammar and writing, but also with her handwriting. 



If she is having a rough week, I do allow her to look at the example in my Teacher's Manual.  She then compares what she thinks she should be writing, with the proper format.  And then she starts add her four new sentences to the previous week's work.




Each week, includes four days of assignments.  Such a small amount of work each week, but it makes a huge impact on a student's sense of accomplishment.  There were a couple weeks during the review period where we were very busy.  We honestly struggled to get "four" days of full school work.  We were able to finish the "week" in just one session of roughly 20-30 minutes.  She was very much able to handle this work. 

It is quite amazing how such a small amount of work is needed to make such a HUGE impact on a student's writing and grammar usage ability.  I have been so impressed that I purchased Fix It! Grammar - The Nose Tree Book 1 for Caty to use.  After just a few weeks, she is able to recognize grammatical errors and is listing off parts of speech as she sees them.  All of the Fix It! Grammar series books follow the same format.

You can purchase the Student Book for a reasonable price of $15.00.  It is already printed for you, and it is also made of quality paper and spiral bound.



Or you can purchase the Teacher's Manual and there is a download code for a printable PDF file of the Student Book.  It is your choice.

The girls have both been struggling with writing out their thoughts.  They both have stories in their head.  But to get them in proper format on paper, has been a challenge.  They wanted to participate in a local library writing contest, and after a few weeks using Fix It! Grammar - Robin Hood, Lydia was able to get her story in a more proper format.  She was super excited and is now waiting on the results of the contest.

We will continue using the Fix It! Grammar Series.  The small about of work really does pay off in a large way.  I can't wait to see the confident smiles as we continue and they realize how much they have accomplished.

Several members of the Homeschool Review Crew were given the opportunity to use the various levels of the Fix It! Grammar series in their homes.  Click on the link below to see how they used these IEW products in their homes and what they felt about them.

Fix It! Grammar {Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) Reviews}

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