The title of this thread caught my eye, but I haven't had a chance to read any but the first post. Just thought I'd share my opinion. :)
*****IEW is an excellent training program that should build confidence and REDUCE the tears instead of create them! :) I also looked highly on the program, but it seemed intimidating to me, as well. Now that I have been trained through the TWSS videos and workbook, I am no longer intimidated but rather excited to teach kids this empowering method of writing! Andrew Pudewa teaches you to introduce one concept to the kids at a time, if necessary,(at their own pace and to their level) and let them practice it until it is EASY. Once that soaked in to my brain, it brought relief and confidence as I learned his approach. To the creative student--this training brings much needed structure on which to build creatively (and plenty of room to use creativity!!)! To the reluctant student, this is step-by-step, check the box when you're done relief to be able to see progress and lists of ideas so you don't have to come up with it all yourself! It's SOOO not intimidating at all and yet, step-by-step, it will build competent writers who have the skills necessary to communicate well!
Personally, I haven't used the videos to teach kids. Once you learn the vision/methods yourself through the training, you will know what you need to do to take each child to the next level. You can use any materials you want to to take them through learning the skills! If they are interested in science, choose a science paragraph to learn from! If they are interested in ancient history, use a paragraph from the book they just read! This is so flexible to make it work for YOUR child and their interests, skills, attention span and your goals for stretching them a bit and building their confidence.
****The history, bible based, etc. courses that are available are only resources, in my opinion, for someone who already has a strong understanding of the curriculum vision! Otherwise, they can seem to possibly go too fast and possibly expect children to be further along than they are in understanding the process. The strength of the program is that YOU, the parent, judge what is expected of your students individually! It's really easy to find appropriate material to use for the kids to practice the skills they are learning (even catered to their own interests if you desire), and you can have several students working on the same thing with different expectations lined out in their checklist. It's really a flexible curriculum that, once you are trained in it's vision, will take the burden off of you while still building excellent writers! :)
Anyway, this is a long post! Didn't mean for it to be--I just wanted to share and hopefully dispel some misunderstandings from this excellent resource! I'll be glad to share more if interested. :)
