Fix It! Grammar ~ A New TOS Review!!

I love Grammar. I know, weird. But for the last several years we've struggled and finding a program that really lit my children for Grammar has been quite a daunting task. My eldest, now in 10th grade, has mostly conquered the majority of Grammar, but my younger two ... not so much. So I was happy to be chosen to review this highly acclaimed grammar curriculum by Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW).

In just 15 minutes a day your children can learn Grammar so easily with Fix It! Grammar. It is a series of 6 books and we chose Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree (Book 1) for two reasons - I was doing it hopefully with multiple children at different grade/stages (10, 13, and occasionally my 15yo if she had time or wanted to join in) AND because it's a new program for us I wanted to be sure to understand the foundation to the program knowing we could go faster if we wanted or needed to.

If you do not know where you would like or need to begin you can check out their placement test so you pick the right level. However, even from Book 1 we found there were advanced concepts that the older student can "fix" that make it perfect for them to work on mastery of the concept. You can listen to this introductory video about Fix It! Grammar by the remarkable Andrew Pudewa!

Now that you've heard from the expert let's dive in to how we used the program.

Like I said above, the program is meant to take just 15 minutes a day and either 4 or 5 days a week depending on how you schedule it (we'll get to our schedule in a little bit). The program consists of a Teacher Manual, Student Manual both of which that are spiral bound. Inside the Teacher Manual you will find 175 pages covering 33 weeks of curriculum (so a ful year) and access to 2 e-audios -- Mastering Learning and But, but, but ...  What about Grammar? Both are excellent! You also get a free download of the 132 page student book which you are able to print and use as needed within your immediate family. This makes it great for larger families!

We like to have Fun School Fridays so knowing that this program can be completed in 4 days was perfect. My daughter did choose to alternate between doing it all in 4 days or using the fifth day to rewrite the 4 sentences from the week.  Each day you spend 15 min (or less on days 2,3,&4) on teaching the Learn It section. This is what will teach the material that will be focused on that week.

You also have grammar cards in the back of the student book that can be popped out and kept for ready reference. Every day your student (and you if you are working with a younger student) will read the sentence, which includes a bolded word. This word is to build vocabulary skills. Your student will then look up the definition of this word and write it down. My daughter chose to write it on the bottom of the days page.

Next is the Fix It portion wher your student will mark and fix the sentence with the teacher's help (if necessary). Days 2,3,&4, follow this same process. The student can do these days on their own if they are not having any trouble with finding the parts of speech and marking them as well as finding the "fixes".

Once these have all been complete the student, in a separate notebook, will rewrite all the corrected passages with double-spacing, indenting, capitalization, and punctuation.  The glossary in the back of both the student and teacher manuals (and is the same in all 6 books) has all the information on Grammar concepts right at your finger tips.

As you can see in the teacher manual we see the sentence for each day, but the answers are already on the sentences. It also tells you exactly what to say, so if Grammar isn't your area of expertise you don't have to fret. Even the definitions of the bolded vocanulary word is right there on the sidebar.

Now that we are several weeks into this program, my daughter says that she wants to finish all 6 books. I think we may have FINALLY found a program that works for her! That's exciting!! In Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree (Book 1) it begins with learning about nouns, articles, and pronouns. But your student will also learn the which and who clauses, all about apostrophes, when you use indentation, other parts of speech all the way to differentiating between your and you're. There are also several weeks (starting from week 25 to week 33) of review where your student will work on all that has been covered from the beginning of the book.

If you have an older student who knows some of these Grammar concepts I'd still highly suggest starting with Book 1 and just doubling up as asvised by Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). There's never a time when review isn't a good thing. My daughter says that this program is quick, fun, and enjoyable. She loves that each week she rewrites the story and then can read it all at once. It's a story none of us have heard before so that is very intriguing to her.

There are many other families who have reviewed Fix It! Grammar: The Nose Tree (Book 1) as well as the other books in the series so be sure to check those out by clicking the link below. You can find Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) also on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram.