Essentials in Writing or Hake Grammar & Writing?

[Mrs. Lilac]

Wondering if anyone has experience/opinions regarding either Essentials in Writing or Hake Grammar & Writing. I would be using it for 5th grade.

 

My thoughts about pluses and minuses so far-

 

EIW

+ I like that EIW has a DVD, so she can hate another writing teacher besides me for a change :p

+ EIW looks simple and affordable

+ EIW goes all the way through high school

- The videos seem to have poor sound quality

- The worksheets look a little amateurish

 

Hake

+ I like that Hake includes dictation, vocabulary, and journaling

+ Looks rigorous

+ looks affordable

- only goes from 5th to 8th grade

- no DVD, so the explaining is all on me

 

 

Would love to hear anyone's experiences/thoughts on either of these!

[TarynB]

I don't have any experience with EIW, but we do use Hake and like it a lot as a grammar program.

 

We don't use the writing portion of Hake, just the grammar portion. I think there are much better options out there for writing. The writing portion of Hake would be a poor fit here as it looks dry and uninspiring, and it feels to me like just an add-on to the grammar portion. (The grammar textbook is over 500 pages for grade 5, for example, while the writing portion of the student workbook is just under 100 pages.) I've seen others here on the board who use the writing portion and like it just fine though. If I recall correctly, the student workbook (which contains the entirety of the writing portion) was less than $5, so you could just get it and look it over for yourself to see if you want to use it.

 

It is accurate that Hake includes dictation, vocabulary and journaling, but they are pretty minor as far as time spent and content. We don't rely on Hake for vocabulary, for example. We use a separate vocabulary program.

 

Hake is written to the student. My DS is pretty independent with it and only comes to me occasionally if he gets stumped with something, so there's not much explaining for the parent to do. Hake is very spiral (like Saxon math, if you're familiar with that) and very thorough. It comes with tests. My DS is allowed to write in the textbook, so there's very little physical handwriting, mostly circle this, underline that, etc., but his retention is excellent. I am very pleased with it.

 

Hope you get more feedback about the writing curriculum!

[hsmom2011]

We have used both and chose Essentials in Writing over Hake. Both are vey good, EIW was a better fit for us.

[threeofakind]

I have no experience with Hake but we are using EIW. It has worked well for my son, I wanted to try it because it was compared to MUS and since he does well with MUS I figured it would work. It does- it's systematic and step by step. I like that we have the dvd portion so someone else can do the majority of the explaining- but of course I still help as needed. He is not a huge fan of writing, and no the program has not gotten him excited but I see progress- and the first portion is grammar review before getting into the different writing pieces. Also, I will mention there is no creative writing (but this is fine for my son who does not care for that either). We are happy and will continue using it next year- which will also be 5th grade!

 

Also, I know the author is working on editing the program and redoing some of the dvd's, if you give him a call you could ask if 5th grade dvd's are being redone.=)

[MerryAtHope]

I haven't used Hake, but Essentials has worked very well here. I've used the 7th-9th grade levels. The sound quality was the only issue we had with the program, and it is better on some of them. Here's a link to my review. Merry :-)