Can you explain the difference between EIW and IEW?

[Mom28kds]

I'm looking for a writing program that I can do next year with my 3rd, 4th & 5th graders. I'm not good at writing and I have reluctant writers. I know this is something I really need to instill in them but I really need something that teaches them since this is my weak area. I can't figure out the differences in theses 2 programs. Do you think either one of these would be what I'm looking for?

[OneStepAtATime]

I know nothing about EIW, so I can't help there. 

 

IEW is very systematic.  For those who struggle with the mechanics of writing, their main program can be an excellent fit.  And they have updated their teacher DVDs so if you didn't mind the old ones you might be able to get those pretty cheaply.  Or just go for the updated version.  The system has DVDs for the teacher and DVDs for the student so the teacher gets taught and the student can learn from the DVDs with the teacher just acting as facilitator or as the teacher and the DVDs are just a supplement, depending on how much hand holding you need.  You can just get one or the other but many get both and find it quite helpful.  I got both.  After you finish the main writing program, they have a ton of additional materials to cover writing all the way through 12th grade.  But this program can feel like a hindrance for natural writers, especially if they are really good at creative writing, so it can get a bad wrap.  For those that need step by step instruction this is a gift.   :)

 

For your age of kids you could easily start with Level A and use it for all three at the same time.  After completing Level A, you could pick themed units for the kids for the following year, if you wanted.  

[smarson]

What are you referring to as EIW?

[Mom28kds]

What are you referring to as EIW?

 

Essentials in Writing

[MerryAtHope]

I've only used part of IEW's SWI C and all of Essentials 7-10, so I can't compare the lower levels of each of these programs, and there will be parts of IEW I can't speak to.

Most IEW C videos were about 30 minutes long. Several video sessions didn't clearly mark the ending point, and you had to look at the guide to know when they ended and watch the time stamp (which our DVD player at the time didn't have...) 

Essentials videos are usually 3-5 minutes and it's very much as the author describes it--a "Math-U-See" approach to writing. He explains a concept and the aspect that you are to work on, then demonstrates what that process might be like, complete with thinking out loud, occasional mistakes or changing your mind as a writer might do, and so on. Then the student works on that one aspect for that day. 

IEW teaches key word outlining (pick 3 key words for a sentence, write those down, and then recreate your own sentence that means the same thing from the key words--you can then recreate paragraphs and short stories). My son enjoyed this process and found it beneficial.  The lessons beyond that point really didn't work for us.

We found that Essentials was much more incremental--it broke things down into steps more, which my reluctant writer really needed. Perhaps he would have done better with IEW B, hard to say. 

Essentials made it easy to teach--it was very much open and go. I didn't find myself having to ask questions to understand an assignment, which I occasionally did with IEW.

I think with IEW, you have to take a longer time to understand the whole process in order to be able to teach it well--or it just approaches things in a way that's not intuitive to me, hard to say! I know many people love it. I've been to a couple of the 2 hour seminars for IEW, so I do have a sense of the process...but I found it hard to just jump in and teach it. Maybe if I had started in elementary years and hadn't felt the push of high school, I wouldn't have minded the "not getting it" stage as much. I tried watching the teacher videos (TWSS) but had trouble tracking with them, and struggled with the organization (somehow I never had the right papers when I needed them for a lesson. Others on the IEW email loop didn't seem to struggle with this, but I've since had a few people tell me they did). 

Essentials is more a program that you can learn as you go--somehow I didn't feel I needed to understand his whole thought process before beginning. Or maybe it's that I could understand it organizationally--in 7-10, we worked on clauses and sentences, then paragraphs, then essays and research papers. It was obvious that we were using building blocks to gradually structure longer pieces of writing. (I suspect that in younger levels you are breaking that process down a bit more by working on grammar as one of your building blocks to learning how to structure language.)

I came away from IEW remembering the "terms" like key word outlines, dress-ups and so forth. My son really needed help understanding how to organize his thoughts and put together a cohesive paper. I think IEW may spend more time in the "mess" of writing, while Essentials got us more quickly to that point of understanding how to create a structure. In some ways, IEW was indirectly teaching that structure through the key word outlines (because you are using someone else's structure as a model for your own). Essentials instead directly taught "do this, now do this..." My oldest especially responds better to very direct teaching like that.

IEW has a great track record for being hugely successful, and I don't think you can go wrong with trying it, especially if you think it will be a good fit. Essentials is newer but has had a lot of positive feedback over the last 4 years it's been around. 

Both have guarantees. IEW has an amazing lifetime guarantee. Essentials offers an unconditional refund on materials--time frame not specified that I've seen.

IEW is a bigger investment up front. 

Both are in Cathy Duffy's top 102 picks:

Cathy Duffy review for Essentials in Writing

Cathy Duffy review for IEW 

HTH to some extent!

[sweetpea3829]

Merry, thank-you.  I am not the OP, but have been following along, as both of these curricula are on my watch list.  

[Saddlemomma]

We're using Jump In this year for DD, who is a reluctant writer. It's been good for her. I didn't know what to use for next year. It was going to be a choice between IEW or EIW. I went with EIW 7 figuring we will skip the grammar portion.

 

After reading this thread, I'm so glad I chose EIW. Thanks everyone.

[Mom28kds]

I've only used part of IEW's SWI C and all of Essentials 7-10, so I can't compare the lower levels of each of these programs, and there will be parts of IEW I can't speak to.

 

Most IEW C videos were about 30 minutes long. Several video sessions didn't clearly mark the ending point, and you had to look at the guide to know when they ended and watch the time stamp (which our DVD player at the time didn't have...) 

 

Essentials videos are usually 3-5 minutes and it's very much as the author describes it--a "Math-U-See" approach to writing. He explains a concept and the aspect that you are to work on, then demonstrates what that process might be like, complete with thinking out loud, occasional mistakes or changing your mind as a writer might do, and so on. Then the student works on that one aspect for that day. 

 

IEW teaches key word outlining (pick 3 key words for a sentence, write those down, and then recreate your own sentence that means the same thing from the key words--you can then recreate paragraphs and short stories). My son enjoyed this process and found it beneficial.  The lessons beyond that point really didn't work for us.

 

We found that Essentials was much more incremental--it broke things down into steps more, which my reluctant writer really needed. Perhaps he would have done better with IEW B, hard to say. 

 

Essentials made it easy to teach--it was very much open and go. I didn't find myself having to ask questions to understand an assignment, which I occasionally did with IEW.

 

I think with IEW, you have to take a longer time to understand the whole process in order to be able to teach it well--or it just approaches things in a way that's not intuitive to me, hard to say! I know many people love it. I've been to a couple of the 2 hour seminars for IEW, so I do have a sense of the process...but I found it hard to just jump in and teach it. Maybe if I had started in elementary years and hadn't felt the push of high school, I wouldn't have minded the "not getting it" stage as much. I tried watching the teacher videos (TWSS) but had trouble tracking with them, and struggled with the organization (somehow I never had the right papers when I needed them for a lesson. Others on the IEW email loop didn't seem to struggle with this, but I've since had a few people tell me they did). 

 

Essentials is more a program that you can learn as you go--somehow I didn't feel I needed to understand his whole thought process before beginning. Or maybe it's that I could understand it organizationally--in 7-10, we worked on clauses and sentences, then paragraphs, then essays and research papers. It was obvious that we were using building blocks to gradually structure longer pieces of writing. (I suspect that in younger levels you are breaking that process down a bit more by working on grammar as one of your building blocks to learning how to structure language.)

 

I came away from IEW remembering the "terms" like key word outlines, dress-ups and so forth. My son really needed help understanding how to organize his thoughts and put together a cohesive paper. I think IEW may spend more time in the "mess" of writing, while Essentials got us more quickly to that point of understanding how to create a structure. In some ways, IEW was indirectly teaching that structure through the key word outlines (because you are using someone else's structure as a model for your own). Essentials instead directly taught "do this, now do this..." My oldest especially responds better to very direct teaching like that.

 

IEW has a great track record for being hugely successful, and I don't think you can go wrong with trying it, especially if you think it will be a good fit. Essentials is newer but has had a lot of positive feedback over the last 4 years it's been around. 

 

Both have guarantees. IEW has an amazing lifetime guarantee. Essentials offers an unconditional refund on materials--time frame not specified that I've seen.

 

IEW is a bigger investment up front. 

 

Both are in Cathy Duffy's top 102 picks:

 

Cathy Duffy review for Essentials in Writing

 

Cathy Duffy review for IEW 

 

HTH to some extent!

This is exactly what I needed! Thank you so much for taking the time to tell me :)

[Doodle]

Thank you MerryatHope! Your post was very helpful.

 

Writing is the one thing I am having a hard time deciding for Doodle's 6th grade year. I was also looking at the sample from WWS1 last night and am now considering that as an option as well.

[matrips]

We only used EIW briefly. We didnt even finish out the year with it. I liked the concept of it, but I wasn't impressed. It was more worksheet like- watch the short video. Do these pieces of writing on a worksheet. It wasn't hard, or time consuming, but we just didn't stick with it. I didn't feel like things were explained or demonstrated very well. That may just be me though.

 

IEW on the other hand we have stuck with. We do use the videos where he teaches directly to the kids, and I do watch the teacher videos. That was my plan with either curriculum- to use the DVDs to teach the students. I don't know if I could have implemented it as well on my own. We did Swi a the first year, and are in SICC a this year. We've learned a lot and the kids have done tons of writing, and they know how to approach a writing assignment and start, instead of sitting there with a blank stare. That is the best part.

[Mom28kds]

We only used EIW briefly. We didnt even finish out the year with it. I liked the concept of it, but I wasn't impressed. It was more worksheet like- watch the short video. Do these pieces of writing on a worksheet. It wasn't hard, or time consuming, but we just didn't stick with it. I didn't feel like things were explained or demonstrated very well. That may just be me though.

 

IEW on the other hand we have stuck with. We do use the videos where he teaches directly to the kids, and I do watch the teacher videos. That was my plan with either curriculum- to use the DVDs to teach the students. I don't know if I could have implemented it as well on my own. We did Swi a the first year, and are in SICC a this year. We've learned a lot and the kids have done tons of writing, and they know how to approach a writing assignment and start, instead of sitting there with a blank stare. That is the best part.

Having done both, am I understanding that your kids learned better with IEW? If so, why do you think this was? Do you think the teacher videos are necessary?

[MEmama]

We've only used IEW, and it has worked wonders for my reluctant writer. I was surprised that a pp posted that it wasn't incremental enough, because being so incremental is exactly why it has worked so well for us. :)

 

Like anything else, what works for any kid is highly subjective. I've learned that no matter how much research I do and how many success/horror stories I read, at some point I just have to jump in and make a decision. It's just curricula, no big deal if it doesn't work out for yours.

[matrips]

Yes, they did. The teacher videos are longer and have much more explanation. The assignments require more paragraph writng and practice than the worksheet type assignments we got in EIW. The videos were necessary for us. Writing wasn't an area I felt super great about teaching; I did not want to correct their writing. That can be a personal thing, you know? And with three kids at the same age and level, I didn't really want to mess up. I had no guinea pigs. However, with the grading checklist he provides, and the expectations, for both student and teacher, that he lays outs in the respective videos, it was very do-able. He also reads lots of student papers, so they can hear other kids papers. they can hear for themselves which ones sound better than others and figure out why. And they look forward to his jokes :).

 

Having done both, am I understanding that your kids learned better with IEW? If so, why do you think this was? Do you think the teacher videos are necessary?

[kiwik]

I used EIW3 as an afterschooling project and I feel it was beneficial. I think for an only writing programme you would have to do each writing lesson several times and do something like WWE alongside the grammar potion.