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Is grammar a tricky subject for you to teach? Do you teach it, but it doesn’t seem like the kids really GET IT? I totally understand if this is you. I can honestly say grammar is one subject I was never entirely taught in school. All I remember is circling the noun in the sentence, filling in a verb, etc. That’s why I’m glad I found Fix It! Grammar by the Institute for Writing Excellence (IEW). It is an excellent grammar curriculum that has made teaching grammar easier.

There are many different approaches to grammar out there. Some are very in-depth with diagramming. Others, as I mentioned, are worksheets where you fill in the blank or circle a specific part of speech. But, overall, they all have their own place. After all, kids learn things differently.

I have been using Fix It! Grammar with my daughter for several weeks now as part of the Review Crew. However, I’ve been using this program for a few years with my son.

But, this year, IEW revised this grammar curriculum. So, let me tell you more about this grammar program and show you what Fix It! Grammar has to offer.

Table of Contents

• Fix It! Grammar: An Overview of This Grammar Curriculum
  • How Kids Learn Grammar
• Using This Grammar Curriculum in Our Homeschool
  • Using the Program with My 9th Grader
  • Fix It! Grammar Cards
  • What My Daughter Thinks of the Grammar Curriculum
• Who Will Benefit From Fix It! Grammar

Fix It! Grammar: An Overview of This Grammar Curriculum

First off, let me give you a quick overview. The Fix It! Grammar program has six books in the series.

• Elementary
  • Nose Tree Level 1
  • Town Mouse and Country Mouse Level 2
• Middle School
  • Robin Hood Level 3
  • Mowgli and Shere Khan Level 4
• High School
  • Frog Prince Level 5
  • Little Mermaid Level 6 (available this fall)

Fix It! Grammar teaches grammar through a story. It is really quite clever and engaging for kids. Using this approach, kids learn grammar in a meaningful way.

Now, if your kids have no experience with grammar, you’d want to start from the beginning. Don’t get hung up on grade levels. It doesn’t really matter. What is essential is that the kids learn the skills because each book builds on the last.

You might be wondering if the early books would be too babyish for older students.

I don’t think so. I think kids at any age will enjoy the stories. It isn’t like the first book, Nose Tree, is written in little kid language. However, older kids may be able to progress through the program quicker.

One fantastic thing about this grammar curriculum is that each lesson is laid out for you, so you know what to teach. AND one other great part is that it can be done in 15 minutes a day. It really can.

Each lesson is laid out in a four-day schedule. So kids work on one sentence or a couple of sentences (depending on the level) each day. However, it is easy to adjust it to your kids’ needs. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

How Kids Learn Grammar

As I mentioned, each level is based on a piece of literature. I’ll walk you through the steps. That way, you can see what the program is like.

First, kids Learn It! The week starts off with a lesson on a couple of grammatical topics. For example, kids may be learning capitalization, indentation, subject -verbs, or main clauses. The teacher manual has all the information there for you to teach. Plus, it has notes in the margin to give some extra help or tips.

Next is Read It!, Mark It!, and Fix It! where kids apply what they have learned.

• Read It!– Kids read the sentence (or sentences) and vocabulary words.
• Mark It!– This is where the kids find certain concepts and mark them. For example, kids may need to find and underline 2 prepositional phrases, 2 main clauses, and 2 subject-verb pairs.
• Fix It!– The last step is to fix the mistakes in punctuation, capitalization, indenting, etc.

Through all the corrections, kids learn and use proofreader marks.

If you’ve used Fix It! Grammar in the past, you are familiar with this process. However, the newly revised editions tell kids how many of each thing they need to mark or fix. I LOVE this improvement. It is a big help for kids. For example, my son would always ask how many adjectives, verbs, etc., he needed to find. Now it tells you!

Finally, when everything is marked and fixed, kids REWRITE the sentence(s) correctly at the bottom of the page. Again, this is a little different than past editions. Prior, kids kept a notebook and rewrote the corrected sentences in it.

Plus, each day, there is a bolded word to define. Then, kids look up the definition that fits the sentence. So it helps kids build some vocabulary skills in context.

Using This Grammar Curriculum in Our Homeschool

As I have shared, Fix It! Grammar isn’t new to us. We’ve used it in the past, along with IEW’s Structure and Style writing program.

By the way, Fix It! Grammar fits in nicely with the Structure and Style curriculum. You don’t need to use IEW’s writing program to use this grammar curriculum, though.

Anyways, I’m a big fan of using IEW’s writing and grammar with my son. It works for him.

However, I hadn’t used this grammar program with my daughter. She is a ninth-grader who is a writer. Therefore, we focused a lot on programs that covered every aspect of grammar and language. It was crazy the types of sentences she was diagramming.

When the review popped up for Fix It! Grammar, I decided to give it a try with my girl. Unlike her previous programs, she would be using real literature to apply grammar concepts. So I thought it might be a good time to switch.

Using the Program with My 9th Grader

Because my daughter had done extensive grammar studies, I wasn’t quite sure where to start. So, I went to IEW’s website for help. I found the scope and sequence for each book and looked over sample pages. I decided Level 5: Frog Prince would be the right place to start. It was!

We use this grammar curriculum four days a week. At the beginning of the week, I do the lesson, and then my daughter does the Day 1 assignment. She has caught on quickly to the concepts. Though, she still needs help from time to time. Occasionally, she missed where the main clause ends when adverb clauses and prepositional phrases are added to the mix.

After a couple of weeks, my girl said she could do two days of work in one. It wasn’t too time-consuming, and she was comfortable with the program. So, by week three, she would do Days 1 and 2 on Monday and Days 3 and 4 on Tuesday.

Since we did a week’s worth of work in two days, we started doing two weeks of work in one week. In doing so, we were still doing four days of grammar lessons in a week.

Another new feature I discovered was practice pages and reviews. After so many lessons, there was a quick review. Sometimes, a lesson had a little practice section before beginning the day’s work. I hadn’t seen this in previous editions. I love that this is part of the program!

All and all, there is 30 weeks worth of lessons. We will continue to use it and buy the Level 6 book when released this fall.

Fix It! Grammar Cards

As part of the review, we received the student and teacher book. However, we also received their add on Grammar Cards. The cards are sturdy, colored cards that accompany the grammar program.

I looked through the cards and will definitely use them for review as we continue with the program. It will help reinforce all the grammar concepts taught and help solidify them in my girl’s brain.

IEW’s site has a list of games and activities that use the cards. There are memory-type games, charades, and more. We didn’t do any of them yet. However, it is an excellent way to make practicing grammar a little more fun. I liked how they had easy to challenging games and games for a couple of players to larger groups. It gives you options.

What My Daughter Thinks of the Grammar Curriculum

I asked my daughter for some feedback. First, I wanted to know her thoughts on the program. Did she like it? Did she think she was learning grammar? Was it something she wanted to continue using?

My girl said she liked the program. But, as she put it (with a shrug), “It’s a grammar program, Mom.” Ahhh, a teenager’s response.

However, when I dug deeper, she said it is a good grammar curriculum. It helps her get better at finding errors and correcting them, and she felt it does a good job teaching grammar. She said she wanted to continue with this program instead of going back to her other one.

The second thing I wanted to know was how it compared to her old grammar program. She said the other program was good if you’re going to be a grammarian and need to understand everything there is to know about grammar.

Fix It! Grammar is good at teaching editing skills. As a writer, she’s at the stage where this is beneficial to her. She can read through the book she is working on and edit her work.

All and all, we are both happy with the program.

Who Will Benefit From Fix It! Grammar

I feel Fix It! Grammar is great for many students. It teaches grammar in a meaningful way; kids SEE grammar in authentic writing and analyze it. It then helps them learn concepts and understand how to use them. After all, to apply concepts, you need to really understand them.

The program is very easy for parents to use. The teacher manual provides clear explanations and information and where to find more help in the book if you get stuck. Plus, you have all the answers right in front of you.

Busy moms will love that they can tackle grammar in 15 minutes and move on to the next subject or help the next child in the family. It really doesn’t take a lot of time.

The student book is very clear and easy to read. Students also have the same information as the parent book on the Learn It! pages (minus the teacher’s help in the margins). This way, kids can refer back to the lesson for help.

So if grammar is a challenging subject for you, you want your kids to learn grammar in context and get it done quickly this is what you are looking for.

Other families used Fix It! Grammar over the past several weeks, too. Go read their reviews and see what they think.

Happy Homeschooling!