When my oldest child told me years ago that Fix It! Grammar was his favorite part of his school day, I knew I found a winning grammar curriculum. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to review it again with another child.
It might surprise people that we don't focus on a great deal on grammar curriculum. After all, I do have an English major, taught high school English classes before my homeschooling days, and truly love the language. However, my kids spend a large portion of their school day reading literature. Doing so, they naturally learn proper sentence structure, writing styles, and enriched language skills. I like to teach parts of speech in a fun, gentle way by incorporating games like Mad Libs into our days. Still, I do believe it is important to have some formal grammatical instruction to supplement their learning. I have tried a few different curricula, but none seem to fit my style of teaching like this Fix It! Grammar book from Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW).
IEW is known throughout the homeschooling community for their exceptional writing materials. Their mission is to equip parents with methods and materials to help their students become confident and competent communicators and thinkers. Their teaching style has been proven to be effective for all ages and levels of ability.
It might surprise people that we don't focus on a great deal on grammar curriculum. After all, I do have an English major, taught high school English classes before my homeschooling days, and truly love the language. However, my kids spend a large portion of their school day reading literature. Doing so, they naturally learn proper sentence structure, writing styles, and enriched language skills. I like to teach parts of speech in a fun, gentle way by incorporating games like Mad Libs into our days. Still, I do believe it is important to have some formal grammatical instruction to supplement their learning. I have tried a few different curricula, but none seem to fit my style of teaching like this Fix It! Grammar book from Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW).
IEW is known throughout the homeschooling community for their exceptional writing materials. Their mission is to equip parents with methods and materials to help their students become confident and competent communicators and thinkers. Their teaching style has been proven to be effective for all ages and levels of ability.
What I personally love about the Fix It! Grammar curriculum is that it is not a traditional program. Instead of learning a rule and then practicing it in a bunch of random sentences, students work through a fairy tale bit by bit. This method of tackling real-life sentences with limited instruction, teaches students to think about their writing and apply the grammar rules to their own work. This method gives the student a better understanding of the material, helps him to retain the knowledge, and gives the assignments a sense of purpose.
Another aspect that makes this curriculum unique is that the student gets to be an editor. As he works through each lesson, he looks for the mistakes and corrects them, along with marking specific notations such as parts of speech, phrases, and clauses. As he progresses through the lessons and learns more grammar rules, the sentences contain more errors. By the end, he will also be able to mark the part of speech for nearly every word in the story.
For the curriculum, you will need a copy of The Nose Tree Student Book, a spiral notebook, an envelope or the like to hold the review cards, and the Teacher's Manual. The purchase of the Teacher's Manual includes a downloadable Student Book, but there is also the option to purchase a printed, spiral-bound book, as well.
The set-up for the teacher is simple. Prepare the spiral notebook with the two sections (one in front for the rewrite of the story and one in back for the writing of vocabulary), cut out the appropriate review cards (in the back of the student book) for the week, and teach new concepts at the beginning of each week.
So, how does it work? The student is given one sentence of the story each day. There are multiple things that he does with that one sentence:
- Look up the bold word in a dictionary and write in the vocabulary section of the notebook which definition best fits the story
- Mark and fix the sentence, using the review cards as reminders
- Rewrite the sentence in the rewrite section of the notebook
New grammar cards are added each week. For instance, week 1 starts with the indent paragraph symbol (¶), nouns (n), homophones and end marks. Week 2 adds articles (ar), week 4 adds quotations, and so on.
To put it in perspective, here is the sentence for day 1, week 1:
As a comparison, here is a sentence from the final week of the book:¶ Did you ever hear the story of the three poor soldiers
- The first thing the student does is look up the bold word and write it and the best definition in the vocabulary section of his notebook. My daughter wrote down poor: lacking sufficient money.
- The second thing is to mark the sentence, using the grammar review cards. She put an n (noun) above story and soldiers. She also put a question mark at the end of the sentence.
- The final thing is to rewrite the sentence in the rewrite section of the notebook, remembering to indent because of the paragraph symbol.
the doctor put on the cloak, wished the king and his court farewell, and was with his to/two/too companions directly
Here, the student needs to start a new paragraph in the rewrite based on there being a new topic in the story instead of following the paragraph symbol, knows to capitalize the first word, can choose the correct homophone, will put an ending period, and should be able to mark the part of speech for every word.
The process should take about 15 minutes a day, 4 days a week for a total of 33 weeks. The course is intended to be a teaching tool, and not graded assignments as the parent should be modeling the editorial process and helping the student as needed.
We are currently halfway through week 5. Of course, the sentences have already gotten a little longer and more complex. Along with nouns, my daughter can also recognize articles, pronouns, and who-which clauses. She has also learned rules about quotation marks.
The spiral-bound Teacher's Manual makes the material simple to teach even if you personally struggle with all the crazy, irregular rules of the English language. The format is easy-to-read, and the directions are clear. There are also many notes throughout the lessons that include teaching tips, advanced words that haven't been taught yet, and various other concepts. The back of the book contains a scope and sequence and a glossary which includes in-depth descriptions of parts of speech, sentences, clauses, phrases, punctuation. additional rules and concepts, and stylistic techniques.
The Nose Tree is the first book in the Fix It! Grammar curriculum which is intended for 3rd-12th grades. Because the remaining 5 books in this set require this foundational book, it is reccomended that students start with The Nose Tree, though there is an optional placement test your student can take.
My daughter is in 5th grade. Since this is her first experience with Fix It! Grammar, I started her at the beginning. She find the lessons simple and could probably finish the entire book in a few weeks if I let her. She likes writing her own stories and is a voracious reader. Naturally, she is thoroughly enjoying working through this fairy tale and rewriting it. But her favorite part? The vocabulary. She gets excited every day when she sits with her giant dictionary and searches for her word. Queried, divulged, forlorn, pitiable, pilfered, laden, and stoutly are some of the rich vocabulary that is highlighted. I love hearing her incorporate these new words in her everyday speech.
When I first told my girl that Fix It! Grammar was coming, she was somewhat disappointed, because she didn't want "extra" work. She was hooked from that very first lesson though. Just like her older brother, she says that the book is fun and is the first subject she completes each day.
Here's what she told me about the curriculum:
"I like that it has a story that I work through instead of just random words. Oh, and I love the vocab!"
The Fix It! Grammar series from Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) is a fantastic grammar curriculum. I have used this first book with 2 of my children successfully and was reminded how much I am impressed with it. In fact, I am planning to continue through the series with my oldest kids and soon start my 9-year-old in The Nose Tree using the downloadable Student Book that came with my Teacher's Manual.
If you're looking for a curriculum that truly works and is applicable to both grammar skills and writing skills, Fix It! Grammar is highly recommended.
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Make sure to head to the Homeschool Review Crew blog to read more reviews of the different books in this curriculum.
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