Fix It! Grammar (A REVIEW)

We have been pretty lacking in a formal grammar program this year, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to try out this curriculum from Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). Their Fix It! Grammar program, with 6 levels or books to choose from, turned out to be a perfect match for my 5th grader. He started with Book 1--The Nose Tree because I haven't really done any formal grammar with him. It has just the right amount of grammar work to not be overwhelming for him, and because of that he really liked it. I really like the gentle approach to grammar this program has.

For this review we were able to receive the physical copies of the Teacher's Manual Book 1, and the Student Book 1. Along with that I purchased a student notebook for each student, and a place to keep the grammar cards (they recommend a pocket folder). Along with the physical books from Fix It! Grammar we received access to the Fix It! Student Book 1 e-book, Mastery Learning e-audio, and "But, but, but...What about Grammar? e-audio. The Student e-books are available for me to print out for other children if I use it for more than one child (because they do write in the book). So nice! For this review I had just my 5th grader working on it, but because I love it so much I will eventually have my 7th grader start on it soon too, so I will print up or purchase another book for him.

Teacher's Manual for Book 1

The Teachers Manual is complete with instructions and answers for the student book. It walks/guides both the student and teacher through each week and daily activity. The teacher can clearly see all that the student sees in their book along with answers and instruction for each days fixes making it easy to read and follow while guiding the student through each day. It is most important for the teacher to sit down with the child at the beginning of the week (day 1) because it is the day with the most instruction, but days 2-4 are not as teacher involved. The student can work mostly on their own on those days just checking the answers with teacher to make sure their fixes are right, and reviewing the grammar rules that have been learned if needed.

Student Book 1

The student book is broken up into weeks and each week is broken up into days. Each day the student has only one sentence or part of a sentence to work with. A days work usually consists of fixing grammar mistakes within the sentence, looking up a bolded word and writing the definition down, and then finally the rewrite of that sentence or section into their notebook which results in a polished written story. That's really it! All in about 15 minutes a day. It seems so simple writing it out like that, but they learn so much along the way. In just the first week my son learned how to better identify a noun, 4 new words, and his handwriting improved even in just 3 days because he was trying to make it look nice for the rewrite. It continues to improve too.

I am happy to say that I really like this Grammar program. I really don't like teaching grammar, and I'm not the best at it myself, but this program makes it easy with just 15 minutes a day. I don't have a ton of prep as a teacher, and my student can do a lot by himself with just a bit of instruction. He not only learns the grammar rules, but he practices by writing it out, also improving his handwriting at the same time.

If you would like to see what others had to say about Fix It! Grammar you can click on the image below. There are other levels reviewed too!