IEW Fix It!

[wehave8]

Is it a comprehensive grammar program?

 

Would you recommend it?  Why/why not?

 

It seems to make sense to me that it would stick better to use real sentences instead of made up sentences that fit a grammar lesson.

 

Pam

[AmyontheFarm]

My kids are loving it!  If you buy it from the website directly, if your kids don't like it you can return it for a full refund.

[AimeeM]

Listening in.

Does it stem from the writing program? Can it be used independent of the writing program?

[AmyontheFarm]

It can be used separately from the writing program but I highly recommend using both together.

[wehave8]

My kids are loving it!  If you buy it from the website directly, if your kids don't like it you can return it for a full refund.

 

This is a good point I forgot about with IEW.  Thanks

 

Pam

[AmyontheFarm]

It can be used separately from the writing program but I highly recommend using both together.

I should have elaborated on this statement.

 

I enjoy using both the writing and grammar program together because it is so easy to use both programs.  When my child writes a sentence and I notice a grammar mistake we have learned about, I'll write the sentence on the white board and hand them the coloured dry erase markers we use for Fix-it!  They will step back look at the sentence and start correcting it using the markers.  Then they will copy their correction back into their working document.  So, I can see they are transferring these skills into their actual writing.  

 

IEW uses their terminology "dress-ups", "sentence openers" and "decorations".  Now, honestly I'm not familiar with other writing programs so I don't know if they use the same terminology in other programs or not.  However, by using both programs your child only has one set of terminology to learn.

[AimeeM]

I should have elaborated on this statement.

 

I enjoy using both the writing and grammar program together because it is so easy to use both programs.  When my child writes a sentence and I notice a grammar mistake we have learned about, I'll write the sentence on the white board and hand them the coloured dry erase markers we use for Fix-it!  They will step back look at the sentence and start correcting it using the markers.  Then they will copy their correction back into their working document.  So, I can see they are transferring these skills into their actual writing.  

 

IEW uses their terminology "dress-ups", "sentence openers" and "decorations".  Now, honestly I'm not familiar with other writing programs so I don't know if they use the same terminology in other programs or not.  However, by using both programs your child only has one set of terminology to learn.

 

Ah. That's a bummer. We're using CAP (dd doesn't care for the dvd presentation of IEW), and they do not, to my knowledge, use any of those terms. I wonder if it would be confusing.

 

[AMJ]

We had mixed results with Fix-It.  It was fine for a little while, but after a bit it grew rather frustrating.  We started IEW with TWSS/SWI-A since it was our first year homeschooling and I preferred to err on the side of repeating something for the kids instead of accidentally skipping something.  We originally started the year with Shurley Homeschool English for grammar, but soon switched to the Fix-It book that came in my IEW bundle.  The kids really wanted to learn more about ALL of the sentence openers when we got into those, but the IEW materials we had didn't cover all of them, and there were other things used in the Fix-It (Tom Sawyer, the first one, lowest level) not covered in SWI-A.

 

Then we encountered a difference of opinion on some word usage (Fix-It versus the kids' recollections of previous schooling and my own understanding), and we decided to look at the original full wording of Tom Sawyer to see how Mark Twain worded things.  Contrary to what we had thought (that the Fix-It book contained snippets from the original, with carefully altered sentences to use for the lessons) we discovered that none of the wording seemed to be Mark Twain's -- the entire story had been rewritten.  The wording we wanted to check on wasn't used at all in the original.

 

This pretty much killed the "credibility" of that Fix-It book, as far as my kids were concerned.  We ended up finishing out the year using auxiliary books for grammar, and this fall I plan on switching to Michael Clay Thompson Language Arts, since it was designed and written all by the same person.  IEW materials outside of writing may have some cross-over with each other, but we found with the Fix-It and writing materials there were discontinuities that tripped us up.

[PeterPan]

Our experience was like AMJ's, and we quickly sold it.  I'm sure some people like it and some don't, so just look at the samples and go with your gut.  For the 10 and under crowd, you might look at this  http://www.amazon.com/Take-Five-Minutes-History-Resources/dp/0743930517   You can also buy it as an ebook I think from the publisher.  They have a couple other themed books in the series.  With an ebook, you could print the pages, cut into strips, then fold and put the in a jar to draw your editing from the day.  At least that's what we did.   :)  I wrote the number of errors on the slip so dd knew how many she was supposed to find (the # is in the answer key, not hard to find).  She edited the slip then rewrote the entire thing out correctly for practice.  That was my super favorite year editing, highly recommend.  I used the slips with the writing class I taught one year also, because the kids were a bit crunchy on basic editing.  Once they had the basics down, then we went into Punctuation Puzzlers.

 

Btw, there are a couple other really solid editing books out there.  There's EM's Daily Paragraph Editing and also Editor in Chief.  Some even come with software options so the dc gets immediate feedback.  I'll bet if you go to Rainbow and search in their editing section you'll pull up a variety of options.

[Mrs Twain]

IEW Fix-It helped my son a great deal last year, and his standardized test scores improved, too. I don't know how the new version will be, but my kids will use it.

 

My main grammar program is R&S English, and I use Fix-It as a supplement to practice applying grammar knowledge, to practice cursive (with the rewrites) and to do extra vocabulary and dictionary practice.

 

I have used Editor in Chief but did not think it was nearly as good as Fix-It.

[Saddlemomma]

I used the older version of Fix-It (Tom Sawyer) with DD last year as a supplement.  We have never used IEW writing so I didn't get into the dress-ups and such.  I used it primarily to teach proper spelling, capitalization, identifying parts of speech, and punctuation. I usually misspelled more words in the sentences. DD enjoyed it much more than doing regular grammar.

 

In fact, she liked it so much, that I went ahead and purchased the first book of the newly revised series, The Nose Tree.  I REALLY like what I see.  I liked the old book as a supplement, but this new series plus Killgallon's Grammar for Middle School is going to replace our grammar program (we also do Latin).  IMHO It will be much easier for those who aren't familiar with or haven't used the IEW writing program to use these books.  There is an extensive Parts of Speech glossary at the back of the book which includes the proper grammar terms in relation to the cute grammar terms used by IEW; such as participles instead of -ing openers, etc.  It also includes additional glossaries for punctuation and other LA rules and concepts.  Each has more in-depth information for each concept taught in the book. There is just so much more instruction in these books that they are suggested to be used as a full grammar curriculum. 

 

Each lesson has four sections: Learn It, Fix It, Vocabulary, Rewrite.  The teachers manual lists extensive teacher's notes, provides grammar notations and suggestions, provides answers, and even provides advanced concepts for reference if you student needs more advanced work.

 

The author suggests that everyone start off with Book 1, The Nose Tree.  I plan to accelerate the lessons and get through this book in the first semester and then move on to the next book.